Angel Botello Barros, Spanish ( 1913-1986)
Spanish painter Angel Botello Barros, born in Cangas de Morrazo, Spain in 1913, formed part of a group of artists and intellectuals who migrated to the Americas after the Spanish Civil War. He lived in Santo Domingo, Haiti, and settled in Puerto Rico in 1944. Botello studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux, France (1930) and in the Academia San Fernando in Madrid (1935). During his years as a student, he exhibited in France and in Spain; works executed at this time show the marked influence of Cézanne in the tectonic brushstroke.
Botello’s early mastery of the handling of color can be appreciated in Cangas and the 1934 Still Life. Fully formed as an artist, Angel Botello Barros and other Spanish artists brought to the Americas a solid academic training and the metropolitan artistic ambiance they would help to recreate in the New World. In Puerto Rico, he established the first successful art gallery, Botello, served as model and helped train members of the 1950s Generation.
The tropical landscape is evident in the colorful rendition of several panoramas of his early years in the Caribbean: Corn Fields, Landscape, Landscape with Palm Trees and Sunflowers. Contact with Haiti had a profound impact on Botello Barros, and such paintings as Caballito, Vaudou and Laundresses are based on Haitian religious and popular traditions. In Haití he meets his wife and partner, Christiane Auguste, with whom he establishes a close collaboration. In his next body of works, he is involved in depicting his children and sundry aspects of familiar life.
Angel Botello Barros played a key role in the rescue and value of Puerto Rican "Santos”, polychromed wood carvings, executed for numerous home altars. Botello collected Santos, which he exhibited in his art galleries. Thanks to him championing of this popular Puerto Rican art form, the community learned to value the aesthetic worth of the Santos.
The simplified, abstracted nature of these popular carvings impacted the painting and sculpture of Ángel Botello Barros. In his mature painting style, Botello does away with creating the illusion of volume and concentrates on childhood scenes, rendered in outline, and sophisticated color schemes. His works gained great appeal among the public, which led to Botello making lithographic editions of his designs. In sculpture, he followed a similar approach: preferring simple figures, which embody the spontaneous joy of childhood.
The 33 years that Botello lived in Puerto Rico, is considered the most prolific period in his artistic career, in terms of the quality of his paintings and sculptures and the quantity of artwork produced and art mediums used. This artistic period of Botello in Puerto Rico has a strong figurative and surrealism influence and is the period that most recognition produced to the artist. This period is known in Puerto Rico as the "Botellian Style" and is recognized by his caricature figures, especially girls.
Angel Botello died in San Juan, Puerto Rico on November 11, 1986, leaving behind an impressive legacy of oil paintings, lithographs, linocuts, serigraphs and bronze sculptures. His former house located at Hato Rey, Puerto Rico now is an art gallery where it displays his paintings, sculptures and artwork of others. LISTINGS WANTED BY DIVA ART GROUP
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