One of the most internationally established contemporary Spanish painter, sculptor and draughtsman, Manolo Valdés was born in Valencia in 1942. He attended the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Carlos de Valencia and began his career in the 1960s as one of the founding members of Equipo Cronica, a group of artists who took inspiration from Pop Art to challenge the Spanish dictatorship of Franco and the History of Art itself. When the movement ended in 1981, Valdes continued his own artistic exploration centered on the appropriation and reinterpretation of masterpieces. He currently lives and work between Madrid, Spain and New York city, USA.
Manolo Valdés has developed an individual style that reviews History without detracting from the original subject. Quoting figures from well-known works of art by old masters such as Velázquez, Rembrandt, Rubens, and Fra Angelico, as well as twentieth-century masters such as Matisse, Picasso, and Lichtenstein, Valdés revitalizes these familiar images by taking them out of their original context. In both paintings and sculptures, he inflates the figure's size, abstracting form and minimizing detail, while incorporating a lot of roughly applied paint and unusual materials. The timelessness of the image as the axis of the visual experience is the determining factor in his creations. In his works, image and matter are fused in a body of work that wanders between Pop Art and material art, between social and political commitment and a continuous search for reinvention.
Valdés has received numerous awards, including the Lissone and Biella in Milan in 1965; the silver medal in the second International Prints Biennial in Tokyo; an award from the Bridgestone Art Museum in Lisbon; the Alfons Roig Award in Valencia; the National Award for Plastic Arts in Spain, the Medal of the Order of Andrés Bello in Venezuela. He has had numerous solo and group shows internationally in galleries and museums alike and his work is part of prestigious private and public collections, notably the de Young Museum of San Francisco; the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy; the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany; the Menil Foundation, Houston, Texas; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Modern Museet Art, Stockholm, Sweden;the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; the Museo Nacional Centre de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts just to name a few. Manolo's iconic sculptures are exhibited outdoors in the parks and gardens of major cities such as the New York Botanical Gardens, Hofgarten, Dusseldorf and Chatsworth House, UK.
Manolo Valdés, Infanta Margarita, 2018
Bronze
130 x 107 x 69 cm | 51.2 x 42.1 x 27.2 in
Manolo Valdés, Matisse como pretexto con azul y rojo, 2020
Mixed media
130 x 100 cm | 51.2 x 39.4 in
Manolo Valdés, Mariposas con Alabastro, 2019
Alabaster and steel
50,8 x 100,3 x 25,4 cm | 20 x 39.5 x 10 in
Manolo Valdés, Clio dorada, 2018
Bronze with gold patina
114 x 255 x 90 cm | 44.9 x 100.4 x 35.4 in
Manolo Valdés, Cabeza de Marmol y Resina
Marble, resin and steel
109,2 x 210,8 x 35,6 cm | 43 x 83 x 14 in
Manolo Valdés, Cabeza con Mariposas Azules, 2019
Resin, steel and steel wire
114,3 x 124,5 x 71,1 cm | 45 x 49 x 28 in
Manolo Valdés, Doble Imagen, 2020
Mixed media
200,7 x 149,9 cm | 79 x 59 in
Manolo Valdés, Retrato con Fondo Naranja, 2020
Mixed media
165,1 x 177,8 cm | 65 x 70 in
Manolo Valdés, Portrait I, 2018
Mixed media on burlap
165 x 140 cm | 65 x 55.1 in
Manolo Valdés, Selene, 2020
Bronze
68,6 x 45,7 x 30,5 cm | 27 x 18 x 12 in
Manolo Valdés, Mariposas Blancas y Negras, 2020
Polychromated wood and iron
62,2 x 48,3 x 43,2 cm | 24.5 x 19 x 17 in
Manolo Valdés, Matisse como Pretexto en Rosa, 2021
Oil on burlap
195,5 x 381 cm | 77 x 150 in
Manolo Valdés, Reina Mariana Amber
Resin
173 x 125 x 90 cm | 68,1 x 49.2 x 35.4 in
Manolo Valdés, Reina Mariana, 2019
Resin
180 x 130 x 89 cm | 70.9 x 51.2 x 35 in
Manolo Valdés, Odalisca Roja y Amarilla, 2021
Mixed media
195,5 x 381 cm | 77 x 150 in
Manolo Valdés, Mariposas Blancas, 2022
Wood and steel
127 x 71 x 17 cm | 50 x 28 x 28 in
Manolo Valdés, Perfil XIII, 2022
Mixed media
158 x 158 cm | 62 x 62 in
Manolo Valdés, Cabeza Ambar, 2022
Glass, wood and steel
96,5 x 51 x 28 cm | 38 x 20 x 11 in
Manolo Valdés, Escultura de Vidrio Azul con Tocado en Aluminio de Mariposas con Resina Azul, 2022
Resin and painted aluminium
114,5 x 236 x 114,5 cm | 45 x 93 x 45 in
Manolo Valdés, Matisse Como Pretexto XVI, 2022
Mixed media
100 x 130 cm | 39.5 x 51.2 in
Manolo Valdés, Matisse Como Pretexto XV, 2022
Mixed media
97 x 71 cm | 38 x 28 in
Manolo Valdés, Picasso Como Pretexto I (Doble Imagen), 2022
Mixed media on wood
146 x 239 cm | 57.5 x 94 in
Manolo Valdés, Mariposas de Colores, 2022
Bronze and resin
96,5 x 96,5 x 76,2 cm | 38 x 38 x 30 in
Manolo Valdés, Vidriera como Pretexto II, 2022
Aluminum and resin
147,3 x 248 x 61 cm | 58 x 97.5 x 24 in