Botero Museum

In front of you is a colonial mansion that holds one of the most generous art donations in Latin America. Since 2000, Fernando Botero's personal collection has hung here; he was the Colombian painter and sculptor famous for his voluminous figures.

1A fortune given away

Until 1999, his collections were scattered among his homes in New York, Paris, Monte Carlo and Pietrasanta. Botero first thought of the Museo de Antioquia in Medellín, but slow decision-making led him to accept an offer from Bogotá's mayor, Enrique Peñalosa. In the end he handed his collection, valued at over 200 million dollars, to the Banco de la República.

There are 87 works of international art and around 123 pieces by Botero himself. You will find oils by Renoir, Monet, Pissarro and Caillebotte, a sculpture by Degas, a Toulouse-Lautrec and a Dalí sculpture that, as he admitted, he bought despite not liking it, to round off the collection.

A clause in the donation forbids lending the works or moving them: the hang remains exactly as the artist decided.

Botero curated the collection himself, with the support of María Elvira Escallón and José Ignacio Roca. The painter died in 2023, and this museum is still one of the best-loved visits in the centre.

2What to look for

• The colonial courtyard, surrounded by galleries.
• The Botero rooms, if you go in: you will instantly recognise his style of overflowing volumes.
• Calle 11, with the Mint and the Luis Ángel Arango Library a few steps away.