January is an ideal month to get your hands on end-of-year art books which, after corporate sponsorships and cocktails, hits bookshelves in a New Year. Here are some choice selections:
Botero
To celebrate their 40 years as a financial institution, Davivienda published a solid book on the last 15 years of painter Fernando Botero this holiday season. Born in Medellín in 1932, Botero is considered one of the most important living painters in the world today, an artist who continues to open retrospectives of his work from Bilbao to New York and Mexico City. Committed to large canvases, Botero is best known for his robust and voluminous subjects. Published by Gamma Editions, the book is divided into 13 chapters with hundreds of photographs taken by local photographers. CEO of Davivienda, Efraín Forero, presents this book with an introduction by Italian art critic and historian Rudy Chiappini: ‘The vision of the world and the fullness of the form.”
José Antonio Suárez
Under the editorial direction of María Soledad Reyna, Letrarte Editors publishes a book on the small drawings and paintings of José Antonio Suárez from 1999 to 2011, an artist from Medellín (1955) whose works are part of private collections and galleries. The book looks at the intimate universe of this obsessive drawer with some 200 full-color images. Sponsored by the cement company Argos, the book reproduces short texts, phrases, of poets and writers, selected by the artists. The photography, design, and layout of the book were done by Miguel Suárez Londoño, brother of the artist.
Jacanamijoy
Seguros Bolívar chooses every year a national artist and dedicates a comprehensive coffee table book to their life and work. This year, Carlos Jacanamijoy (1964) has clinched a luxurious and stellar book filled with large reproductions of his paintings from the last two decades. Known for employing bold brush stokes which evoke rainforests and the ever present nature of his native Putumayo, Jacanamijoy is a layered artist who captures sentiment and memory with rich, agitated colors. With texts by renowned Colombian art critic Álvaro Medina, the book was designed and edited by Villegas Asociados S.A., and includes 179 photographs by Ernesto Monsalve, Roberto Ávila and Fabián Alzate. Through pictures and printed paintings we are drawn into the subconscious world of Colombia’s most important indigenous artist.
