ART: Berkeley Bears Witness

Professor Thomas Laqueur reflects on the impact that the donation of Fernando Botero’s Abu Ghraib series of paintings and drawings will have on the UC Berkeley campus.

On September 22, 2009, the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum (BAM) will welcome Fernando Botero’s generous gift of 26 paintings and 30 drawings from his Abu Ghraib series to Berkeley and to the museum’s permanent collection. Valued in the multiple millions — although Botero has always said they would never be for sale — this is the largest gift in BAM’s history and one of the largest in the history of any American university collection.