Manolo Valdés

MANOLO VALDÉS BLASCO (Valencia, 1942).
"El café".
Lithograph, copy 64/75.
Signed and justified in pencil.
Work published in the catalogue raisonné "Obra gráfica de Manolo Valdés", Victoria Hidalgo, Ediciones TF, Madrid, 2002, pg 79 n.5.
Size: 77 x 57 cm; 95 x 73 cm (frame).
Manolo Valdés was born in Valencia on 8 March 1942. In 1957 he enrolled at the San Carlos School of Fine Arts, where he spent two years, abandoning his studies to devote himself to painting. In 1964 he founded the artistic group Equipo Crónica together with Juan Antonio Toledo and Rafael Solbes, in which he remained until Solbes' death in 1981, even though Toledo had left the group two years after its foundation. After the death of Rafael Solbes he continued to work alone in Valencia for a few years, until 1989, when he travelled to New York where he set up his studio and continued to experiment with new forms of expression. He is a member of the Marlborough Gallery and the Freites Gallery. He also set up a studio in Madrid to make large sculptures, alternating his creative work in both cities.
Influenced by Velázquez, Rembrandt, Rubens and Matisse, Manolo Valdés produces a large format work in which the lights and colours express a feeling of tactility due to the treatment given to the materials. His work forces the viewer to delve into memory and search for significant images from the history of art. In addition to the works exhibited as part of Equipo Crónica, Valdés had more than 70 solo and group exhibitions between 1965 and 1981. As a sculptor, he is the author of La Dama del Manzanares (2003), a 13-metre high work located in the Parque Lineal del Manzanares (Madrid). In 2005 he created the sculptural group Asturcones, for the city of Oviedo. Valdés has received several prizes, among which the following stand out: in 1965 the Lissone and Biella prizes, in Milan (Italy), in 1979, the Silver Medal of the II International Biennial of Engravings in Tokyo (Japan) and the Bridgestone Art Museum Prize in Lis'79 in Lisbon (Portugal); in 1983 the National Prize of Plastic Arts; the Alfons Roig Prize, in Valencia; the National Prize of Fine Arts of Spain; in 1986 the Medal of the Biennial of the International Festival of Plastic Artists, in Baghdad (Iraq) and in 1993 the Decoration of the Order of Andrés Bello in the class of the Band of Honour, in Venezuela.