"Still Life with Playing Cards", 1994

Fernando Botero's works fascinate the viewer by their vitality and their individual pictorial language. Still lifes have a special place in his oeuvre. With his still lifes Botero continues the tradition of the masters of the Spanish baroque still life such as Juan Sánchez Cotán or Francisco de Zurbarán, "who even managed to transform lowly objects into still lifes of a noble aura" (Fernando Botero). Botero paints the objects in his still lifes as the sensuous, voluminous forms characteristic of his painting style.