Portrait. Manolo ValdesUnique specimen

Etching and drawing by Manolo Valdés, unique copy.

Manuel Valdés Blasco, known as Manolo Valdés (Valencia, March 8, 1942), is a Spanish painter and sculptor living in New York. He introduced in Spain a form of artistic expression that combines political and social commitment with humor and irony.

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 two years after the group’s founding, Toledo had left it.

After the death of Rafael Solbes he continued working alone in Valencia for a few years, until 1989, when he traveled to New York where he set up his studio and continued experimenting with new forms of expression.

Valdés has received several awards, among them: in 1965 the Lissone and Biella awards, in Milan (Italy), in 1979, the Silver Medal of the II International Biennial of Engravings in Tokyo (Japan) and the Bridgestone Art Museum Award at 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 Andres Bello in the class of Band of Honor, in Venezuela.