News Culture

Artist Fernando Botero to be buried in Italy

By: Wanted in Rome

Date:

17 Sep, 2023

Botero to be laid to rest in Pietrasanta beside his wife.

Colombian artist Fernando Botero, who died in Monaco on Friday at the age of 91, is to be buried in the Tuscany region of Italy, his family announced.

Botero, famed internationally for his paintings and sculptures of corpulent figures, is to be laid to rest in Pietrasanta, his son Fernando Botero Zea told Italian news agency ANSA.

The artist, who had a home in the Tuscan town, is to be buried beside his wife, the Greek artist Sophia Vari who died just four months before Botero.

"After Colombia, Italy was the most important country for my father," Botero Zea told ANSA.

Botero was an honorary citizen of Pietrasanta, where his family met up every summer, and before his death he expressed the wish to be buried in the town's cemetery.

The town's mayor Alberto Stefano Giovannetti underlined the strong bond that has long linked Botero with Pietrasanta, telling Tuscan newspaper La Nazione: "If we are a cradle of art, we owe it to him".