(Bogotá) The remains of Fernando Botero arrived in Bogota on Thursday aboard a plane from France, kicking off a week of tributes to the most famous Colombian artist in the world, noted the AFP.
The coffin of the painter and sculptor who died on September 15 in Monaco following pneumonia was loaded into a hearse at El Dorado airport in the Colombian capital.
Lina Botero, one of his daughters, was waiting for him in tears, accompanied by the Minister of Culture, Juan David Correa.
Colombians must say their last goodbyes to one of the most important artists of the 20th century and one of the best-known Colombian figures abroad, along with Nobel Prize winner for Literature Gabriel Garcia Marquez, during several events.
From Friday to Sunday, the artist’s coffin will be displayed in an ardent chapel open to the public within the Capitol, the seat of Congress, and on Monday, a Catholic mass and a concert will be organized in his honor at the Botero Museum, where 208 of his works are exhibited, according to the Ministry of Culture.
Medellín, his hometown in the northwest of the country, will receive on Tuesday and Wednesday the body of one of his most beloved sons, who donated sculptures and paintings that adorn the parks and squares of the second city of Colombia.
Thursday, “at the end of these tributes, the body of the master and his coffin will be cremated and transferred to Italy, where his remains will rest” in the small village of Pietrasanta, the ministry said in a press release.
His ashes will be buried next to the grave of his wife, the Greek artist Sophia Vari.
Botero’s works, mostly depicting figures with voluptuous figures, have been sold at auction for sums of up to $4.3 million in the world’s most prestigious galleries.
Fernando Botero has also been a major patron, with donations estimated at more than $200 million. Concerned about making his works accessible to the general public, particularly the working classes, he gave many of his works to the museums of Medellín and Bogota, but also dozens of paintings from his private collection, including Picasso, Monet, Renoir, Miro…
His works can also be seen outdoors in many cities around the world.