Collection

Painter, printmaker and sculptor. Botello first studied in 1930 under François Maurice Roganeaux at the Êcole des Beaux Arts in Bordeaux, France. In 1935 he returned to Spain to study at the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid. The Spanish Civil War interrupted his education, and in 1940 he moved to the Dominican Republic and later Haiti. In 1953 he came to Puerto Rico and opened Las Antillas Gallery (later Botello Gallery), one of the first art galleries on the island. From that time on he devoted himself entirely to his artistic work, and although he often worked in landscape and still life, he made the portrayal of the human figure, especially children, the main subject of his work. His pictorial language is simple, based on geometric simplification of the figures and large areas of strongly outlined flat color.