Botero Museum

Located in the historic La Candelaria neighborhood, the Botero Museum houses 123 works by Colombian artist Fernando Botero and 85 pieces from his personal collection, including works by Picasso, Monet, and Dalí. Housed in a restored colonial mansion, the museum offers free admission and is part of Bogotá’s cultural complex, which includes the Gold Museum and the Luis Ángel Arango Library.

Planning your visit

The Botero Museum was a gift with conditions. Fernando Botero donated 123 of his own works and 85 pieces from his private collection to Colombia in 2000, stipulating that admission be free forever and that nothing ever be sold or lent. The result sits in a restored colonial mansion in La Candelaria, arranged around a courtyard, and it costs nothing to enter.

Botero's own work — the inflated volumes applied to figures, still lifes, animals and reworked masterpieces — is instantly recognisable and better understood in quantity than in single images. But the personal collection is the surprise: Picasso, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Chagall, Dalí, Miró, Bacon and Giacometti, assembled by a Colombian artist and given to his country, forming the best collection of European modern art in the region.

The museum is part of a cultural complex run by the central bank that also includes the Gold Museum and the Luis Ángel Arango Library, all within a few streets.

Bookable options are guided tours of the museum, which help with Botero's own intentions — the volume is about sensuality and form rather than the joke most visitors initially read — and with the range of the donated collection. Current availability is shown below.