The remains of Fernando Botero arrived in Bogotá this Thursday by plane from France to start a week of tribute to the most famous Colombian artist in the world by his compatriots, he said AFP.

The hearse met the coffin with the body of the painter and sculptor who died on September 15 at the age of 91 in Monaco as a result of pneumonia at the capital’s El Dorado airport.

Lina Botero, one of his daughters, was waiting for him in tears accompanied by the Minister of Culture Juan David Correa, the journalists report.

With the Nobel Prize for Literature, Colombians will say a final goodbye to one of the most important artists of the 20th century and one of the most famous Colombians abroad. Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

From Friday to Sunday, the artist’s coffin will be in the public cremation chamber at the National Capitol, and on Monday, a Catholic Mass and concert will be held in his honor at the Botero Museum, where 208 of his works are on display, the statement said. Ministry of Culture.

BOGOTA. Lina Botero, the daughter of maestro Botero, is crying next to her father’s coffin in the capital of Colombia.
Photo: EFE

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Medellín will receive the body of one of its most beloved childrenwhich donated sculptures and paintings that adorn parks and squares in Colombia’s second city.

Next Thursday, “at the end of the tributes, the teacher’s body and his coffin will be examined for later cremation and transfer to Italy, where his remains will rest” in the small town of Pietrasanta, the ministry added in a statement.

The ashes will be buried next to the grave of his wife, the Greek artist Sophia Vari.

Boter’s creations, mostly of voluptuous and slightly surreal forms, were sold for as much as 4.3 million dollars in the world’s most prestigious galleries.

In Colombia, he wanted to open his works to the public, trying to bring art closer to the common class, and in the world he exhibited them in cities such as Madrid, Paris, Barcelona, ​​Singapore and Venice, among others.