Sotheby's Breuer Hosts First Solo Show on Botero's New York Years

Sotheby's Breuer headquarters in New York is hosting 'Botero in New York,' the first exhibition at the venue dedicated to a single artist. Organized with the Botero family, the non-selling show features over 20 rarely seen paintings and sculptures from the artist's archive and private collections, many debuting in New York. The exhibition traces the development of 'Boterismo,' Botero's signature style of voluminous forms, during his formative years in Greenwich Village in the late 1950s and 1960s. Botero arrived when abstraction dominated, but he persisted with figuration, developing sharp critique and wry humor in works like 'Mona Lisa, Age Thirteen' (1959), which was acquired by MoMA curator Dorothy Miller in 1961. The show includes early pieces such as 'Apotheosis of Ramón Hoyos' (1959) with rare abstraction, and 'Picnic' (1973) making its public debut, a nod to Manet's 'Luncheon on the Grass.' Anna Di Stasi, Sotheby's global head of Latin American art, noted that Botero made figuration a site of radical invention. Since his death in 2023, auction sales hit $53.8 million in 2024, with a record $5.1 million for 'The Musicians' at Christie's. The exhibition runs July 22–September 7 at 945 Madison Ave.