MANOLO VALDÉS BLASCO (Valencia, 1942)."Count Duke of Olivares".Mixed media on burlap.Size: 199 x 100 cm; 206 x 109 cm (frame).The work of Manolo Valdés as a sculptor highly influences the rest of his artistic production. An example of this is the monumentality of this portrait belonging to the Conde Duque series. In the works of the Valencian painter there is a great presence of the great classics of art, this work is a clear example of this. Inspired by the great masters such as Francisco de Goya, Diego Velázquez, José de Ribera, Francisco de Zurbarán or Doménikos Theotokópoulos (El Greco), without ever hiding the fact that these artists are part of his creations. In this case he does not try to recreate established patterns, but to go beyond and give life to a portrait that flees from the figurative and makes contact with other artistic currents such as abstraction, through a completely personal aesthetic. A pictorial look that starts from tradition and equates Valdés' mastery to that of the great masters. Thus managing not only to create an expressive, dynamic and exacerbated portrait through his technique, but also to contextualize himself in contemporaneity, as one of the great Spanish artists.Manolo Valdés introduced in Spain a form of artistic expression that combines political and social commitment with humor and irony. He began his training in 1957, when he entered the San Carlos School of Fine Arts in Valencia. However, two years later he abandoned his studies to devote himself fully to painting. In 1964 he founded the artistic group Equipo Crónica, together with Juan Antonio Toledo and Rafael Solbes, in which he remained until the latter's death in 1981, despite the fact that Toledo had left the group two years after its foundation. Since then he has settled in New York, where he currently resides and where he has continued to experiment with new forms of expression, including sculpture. Among the numerous awards Manolo Valdés has received are the Lissone and Biella of Milan (1965), the silver medal of the II International Biennial of Engravings of Tokyo (1979), the prize of the Bridgestone Art Museum in Lisbon (1979), the National Prize of Plastic Arts (1983), the medal of the International Festival of Plastic Artists of Baghdad (1986), the Decoration of the Order of Andres Bello in Venezuela (1993), the award of the National Council of Monaco (1997), the Gold Medal of Merit in Fine Arts (1998), the Award of the Spanish Association of Art Critics (2000) and the Best Print Artist Award (2002), among others. With Equipo Crónica, Valdés used figuration as a vehicle of expression for his approaches, for his criticisms of art, society and politics, but prioritizing above any other content the pure act of painting. From the thematic point of view, Valdés was inspired by the art of the great masters of painting: Goya, Velázquez, El Greco, Ribera or Zurbarán, and he never hides his models, but rather emphasizes them, even in the titles of his works. Formally, he creates a large format work in which lights and colors express tactile values, 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. Valdés is represented in some of the most outstanding museums around the world, such as the Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Metropolitan, the MoMA and the Guggenheim in New York, the Georges Pompidou Center and the Fons National d'Arts Plastiques in Paris, the Kusnthalle in Hamburg and the Kunstmuseum in Berlin.