The Death of Pablo Escobar

painting by Botero

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June 23, 2026

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The painting "The Death of Pablo Escobar" by Fernando Botero depicts the 1993 death of the notorious Colombian drug lord. Pablo Escobar, leader of the Medellín cartel, was killed in a shootout with Colombian authorities after escaping from a luxurious prison he had built for himself. At its peak, the Medellín cartel dominated the cocaine trade, making Escobar one of the wealthiest and most powerful drug traffickers in the world during the 1980s and early 1990s. Botero, known for his distinctive style of depicting inflated human and animal forms, used this painting to address the violence and illegal drug industry in his home country.1234

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Fernando Botero
…industry in such works as The Death of Pablo Escobar (1999), which shows the leader of the Medellín cartel being fatally shot. In 2004, after the torture of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison came to light, Botero began creating numerous paintings and drawings on the…
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…industry in such works as The Death of Pablo Escobar (1999), which shows the leader of the Medellín cartel being fatally shot. In 2004, after the torture of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison came to light, Botero began creating numerous paintings and drawings on the…
Read More