Art History’s 10 Best Alternative Male Nudes

From: Artnet News

Fernando Botero, Abu Ghraib 43 (2005).
Courtesy Marlborough Gallery.

The Columbian artist best known for his sculptures of endearingly curvy men, women, and animals tackled some uncharacteristically prickly subject matter in 2005 when he created a brutal series of paintings and drawings responding to the vile actions of US military offices at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. “They may not be masterpieces, but that may not matter,” the New York Times‘s Roberta Smith wrote when Marlborough Gallery showed the works the following year. “They are among Mr. Botero’s best work, and in an art world where responses to the Iraq war have been scarce—literal or obscure—they stand out."