Lot 3443* - A209 PostWar & Contemporary - Thursday, 20. June 2024, 02.00 PM
MANOLO VALDÉS
Provenance:
- Marlborough Galerie, Zurich.
- Swiss collection, acquired from the above gallery in 2003.
“I must create something for which the materials are dominant, the subject is an excuse.“ Manolo Valdés
The artist Manolo Valdés, born in Valencia in 1942, is today one of Spain's most renowned contemporary artists. He began his training as a painter at the young age of 15 in his home city at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Carlos. At the age of 23, together with fellow Valencian artists Rafael Solbes and Juan Antonio Toledo, he founded the artist group Equipo Crónica, a distinctly Spanish manifestation of Pop Art that used irony and humour to criticise the country's then dictator, Francisco Franco. After the death of Solbes, the artist group disbanded in 1981. By this time, Valdés had already presented his politically charged work in over 60 solo exhibitions and numerous group exhibitions.
In his solo career, he developed an unmistakable style focussing on the appropriation and reinterpretation of classic masterpieces – the very essence of his work. As if in homage to art history, Manolo Valdés sometimes makes reference to Greek historiography, sometimes to Jan van Eyck, sometimes to Diego Velázquez, Henri Matisse or Pablo Picasso, or even the American Pop Art artists such as Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol. He therefore draws on an extensive artistic repertoire and produces ingenious and at the same time historically founded works that recall the past through his artistic reconstructions.
Manolo Valdés' visual imagery is characterised above all by large-format murals. In a perfect balance between light, colour, texture and scale, the sensation of sculptural canvases becomes the focus of his work. A marvellous example of this is ‘Dorothy IX’ from 2003.
According to Manolo Valdés' studio, the ‘Dorothy’ depicted here is purely fictional. The focus is on the visual material. The contours of Dorothy’s facial features as portrayed are characterised by reduced black lines. The dominant almond-shaped eyes, the striking eyebrows and the round mouth are centring face’s silhouette. Emphasised by the symmetrical division of the uniform areas of colour in yellow, blue, light green and dark green, the face appears almost static and so emphasises the calm, imperturbable aura of the subject. The centre of the picture is crowned by a vibrant headdress: thanks to the voluminous jute collage and the powerful, broad brushstrokes, her hair seems to dance around her peaceful face like an ornament. A tension arises in the juxtaposition of these two pictorial levels, yet they function as a harmonious whole, enriching each other in their differences. The materiality of this work lends a sensuous and sculptural quality that expresses an unparalleled modernity and timelessness.
DOROTHY IX: MANOLO VALDÉS
EIN MONUMENTALES MEISTERSTÜCK
Clarisse Doge stellt uns die Technik und Philosophie hinter diesem monumentalen Werk eines der bedeutendsten zeitgenössischen Künstler vor.
CHF 180 000 / 300 000 | (€ 185 570 / 309 280)
Sold for CHF 350 000 (including buyer’s premium)
All information is subject to change.