Artist: Manolo Valdés
Title: Place Vendôme, 2016
Manolo Valdés is one of few artists today who has successfully mastered the disciplines of drawing, painting, sculpture and printmaking. In each medium he shows himself to be technically skilled, highly original and unceasingly provocative. Born in Valencia, Spain in 1942, he began his training as a painter at the age of 15 when he entered the Fine Arts Academy of San Carlos, Valencia.
In 1964 Valdés, Rafael Solbes and Joan Toledo collaborated to form Equipo Crónica, an artistic team that utilized Pop Art to question the Spanish dictatorship of Francisco Franco and the history of art itself. After the group dissolved in 1981, Valdés reinvented himself.
He draws heavily upon Spanish artistic heritage, particularly the work of Velázquez and the informalismo of his immediate predecessors Manolo Millares, Antonio Saura and Antoni Tàpies. Using etching, silkscreen and collage techniques, the prints of Manolo Valdés reference these and other masters, including Rembrandt, Rubens and Matisse, creating an intellectual twist that brings significant historical works out of their original context. Today Valdés lives and works in New York and Madrid.
The works of Manolo Valdés can be seen in numerous public and private collections including: Fonds National d’Arts Plastiques, Paris, France; Fundación Caja de Pensiones, Barcelona, Spain; Fundación del Museo Guggenheim Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain; Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Centre Julio Gonzalez, Valencia, Spain; Kunsthalle, Kiel, Germany; Kunstmuseum, Berlin, Germany; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York; Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Internacional Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City, Mexico; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York; Veranneman Foundation, Kruishoutem, Belgium.
