In 1961, the New York curator Dorothy Miller bought a Botero work, “Mona Lisa, Age Twelve,” for the Museum of Modern Art. It was placed on exhibit while the original Mona Lisa was being shown uptown, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Modern’s attention to his work helped set Mr. Botero on a path to renown. “A perfect woman in art can prove banal in reality, like a photograph in Playboy,” Mr. Botero reasoned. “The critics have always written with rage and fury about me, all my life,” Mr. Botero groused.

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Persons: Dorothy Miller, “ Mona Lisa, ”, Mona Lisa, Botero, ” Mr, “, Botero’s, Godfrey Barker marveled, Barker Organizations: Museum of Modern, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Hirschhorn, Sculpture, Evening Locations: York, Washington, London, New York