Fernando Botero: The Abu Ghraib Series

August 3–September 23, 2011

Internationally acclaimed artist Fernando Botero created an intense torrent of drawings and paintings responding to abuses at Abu Ghraib prison. In 2009, the artist donated fifty-six works from this series to BAMPFA, an extraordinary gift made in recognition of Berkeley's historic role in the arena of free speech.

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Fernando Botero: Abu Ghraib 06, 2004; graphite on paper; 11-3/4 x 15-3/4 in.; gift of the artist, 2009.12.5.

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Fernando Botero: The Abu Ghraib Series

August 3–September 23, 2011

August marks the anniversary of the 2004 Pentagon study, led by James Schlesinger, investigating abuses at Abu Ghraib prison. Internationally acclaimed artist Fernando Botero (b. 1932) had already begun his now-famous series of paintings and drawings responding to this and other anguishing reports of prisoner abuses. Over a fourteen-month period Botero created an intense torrent of drawings and paintings, numbering the works in sequence as he made them, “Abu Ghraib 01” and so on, as if creating a chronicle of his own response. In 2009, the artist donated fifty-six works from this series to the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, an extraordinary gift made in recognition of Berkeley's historic role in the arena of free speech.