Manolo Valdés

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Status, estimate and price of the artist Manolo Valdés

Price of a painting: 770 – 280,000 €.

Price of a drawing: 400 – 34 400 €.

Estimation of a sculpture: 13.600-340.000 €.

Estimation of a print: 100-15.000 €.

Price of a tapestry: 1.000-1.800 €.

If you would like to have a work by Manolo Valdés appraised, our experts will take care of everything.

The beginnings of Manolo Valdés

Manolo Valdés is a Spanish painter and sculptor born on March 8, 1942 in Valencia. He began his artistic training at the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts in Valencia when he was 15 years old and stayed there for two years. He dropped out of this school before graduating to begin his artistic career.

In 1964, together with Juan Antonio Toledo and Rafael Solbes, they formed an artistic group that they called “Equipo Crónica” (“Chronic Equipment”), which aimed to respond to the Spanish dictatorship with a political use of an emanation of Pop Art. Valdés explains that “for us, Pop Art is a means of engaging in a political battle, but also an escape route and a means of fighting against the dominant artistic tendencies linked to informal art”. Toledo left the group a year after it was created, but the other two founders kept it alive until Solbes’ death in 1981.

The influences and style of Manolo Valdés

Heavily influenced by artists such as Velázquez, Rembrandt, Rubens, Matisse or Picasso, Valdès manages to create pieces in which light and colour express a feeling of tranquillity. His work is energetic and decorative, with historical symbols. His realisations are varied, he creates paintings, monumental sculptures, engravings and collages through extremely pure forms.

Over the years, Valdés has become more interested in the texture of the surface and uses tactile materials such as string, burlap and even bitumen. For his paintings, he applies oil in thick layers. He also reinvents the style of collage-assembly. He shows a preference for wood in his sculptures and uses tree roots to create montages that are always inspired by classical works.

Manolo Valdes, an award-winning and recognised artist

With the works he exhibited, Valdés held more than 70 exhibitions, both individual and collective, between 1965 and 1981.

He received numerous awards, including a silver medal at the Second International Print Biennial in Tokyo a national award for Fine Arts in Spain, a medal at the Festival of the International Biennial of Art in Baghdad, and the medal of the Order of Andrés Bello in Venezuela in 1993.

In 2006, the Queen Sofia Central National Museum of Arts dedicated a retrospective to him.

Recently, he exhibited monumental sculptures representing six giant heads on Place Vendôme in Paris. They are influenced by the Spanish pictorial tradition and converse with the space around them.

Recognising Manolo Valdés’s signature

Like many artists, Valdés did not sign all of his works. However, you will find below an example of the signatures to give you an idea. Variations of these signatures do exist, do not hesitate to contact one of our experts to formally authenticate a signature.

Appraising and selling a piece by Manolo Valdés

If you own a piece by Manolo Valdés or any other object, ask for a free estimate via our online form.

You will then be contacted by a member of our team of experts and auctioneers to give you an independent view of the market price of your piece. In the context of a possible sale, our specialists will also advise you on the different options available to sell your work at the best price.