Manolo Valdés: Five Keys to Understanding His Status as a Leading Figure in Contemporary Art Through “Conde-Duque de Olivares”

Manolo Valdés’s career is part of one of the most consistent efforts to reexamine the tradition of painting within European contemporary art. Following the dissolution of Equipo Crónica, his solo work has focused on an increasingly refined exploration of the image, understood not as a descriptive representation but as a structure of visual thought. In this context, the motif of the Count-Duke of Olivares—drawn from the imagery of Diego Velázquez—takes on a unique significance within Valdés’s body of work. Works such as *The Count-Duke of Olivares* allow us to understand the consolidation of a visual language in which the history