Fernando Botero (born in 1932) is a Colombian neo-figurative artist, self-titled "the most Colombian of Colombian artists". In 1948, he started to work as an illustrator. He went to Europe in 1950 and attended the Academy of San Fernando in Madrid, copied Velázquez and Goya in the Prado and admired the frescoes in Florence. He went on a long visit to Mexico in 1956-57. The experience of Muralism significantly influenced his future direction. In 1959 he won the first prize at the Salón de Artistas Colombianos. He introduced inflated forms, puffing up to an exaggerated size human figures, natural features, and objects of all kinds, celebrating the life within them while mocking their role in the world. He combined the regional with the universal, constantly referring to his native Colombia and also creating elaborate parodies of works of art from the past, whether Dürer, Bonnard, Velázquez or David. The symbols of power and authority everywhere - presidents, soldiers and churchmen - are targeted in his attacks on a society still infantile in its behaviour.