Notes

Giuseppe Bottero grew up in the Monastero Bormida district in Piedmont, northern Italy. The first picture book he received as a child was illustrated with an array of birds and animals, but he concentrated on the images of African lions, leopards, elephants, giraffes and vultures. He found refuge from the rough-and-tumble of village bullying by spending his time alongside the Bormida River that flowed nearby his home. He named it the ‘Friendly River’ and occupied himself with observing the fish, birds, insects and animals that lived in the river and along its banks. He studied the local plants intently, acutely aware of the life-cycles of the various species.

Bottero joined the army in 1932 and was posted to Ethiopia with the Italian Army of Occupation in 1935. After World War II, he relocated to southern Africa where he spent the rest of his life building what he termed Bottero’s African Wildlife Collection. He is most well known for The Meeting, a large painting that shows a gathering of more than 400 animals, birds, reptiles and insects in an African landscape. This work was reproduced as a poster that sold thousands of copies across the world as part of Bottero’s efforts to draw attention to the necessity of conserving the continent’s natural heritage.