Although the U.S. military ceased its operations at Baghdad’s notorious Abu Ghraib prison several years ago, the 2004 revelations of prisoner abuses there sparked debates—about torture, military ethics, and the role of the United States as a world power—that are far from over. Internationally acclaimed artist Fernando Botero (b. 1932) offers a powerful vision of the atrocities of Abu Ghraib in a series of fifty-six paintings and drawings, which has now returned to Berkeley as an extraordinary gift from the artist to the permanent collection of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Thousands of Bay Area visitors first saw this group of works in early 2007, in an exhibition at UC Berkeley’s Doe Library organized by the Center for Latin American Studies, one of the first presentations of the series in North America. The Colombian-born artist has made this magnanimous gift in response to the enthusiastic interest in the series from the Berkeley community and in recognition of Berkeley’s historic role in the arena of free speech.
