Manuel Valdés Blasco (Spouse: Rosa; Daughter: Maria)  is one of the most significant and internationally recognized Spanish artists of the postwar era. He is a master of multiple disciplines, including painting, sculpture, and printmaking, known for his unique ability to recontextualize historical art motifs through a modern, tactile lens.

Valdés began his formal training at the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts in Valencia. In 1964, he gained major prominence as a co-founder of the influential artistic collective Equipo Crónica. Along with Rafael Solbes and Juan Antonio Toledo, Valdés used Pop Art aesthetics and social realism to offer a critical, often satirical commentary on Spanish politics under the Franco regime and the nature of art itself. Equipo Crónica was famous for “borrowing” iconic figures from art history—such as Velázquez’s Meninas or El Greco’s portraits—and placing them in contemporary, flattened, or politically charged environments.

After the death of Rafael Solbes in 1981, Valdés transitioned to a highly successful solo career. Moving away from the flat, graphic style of his collective years, he began to emphasize texture and materiality. His solo work is characterized by the use of unconventional materials like burlap, rough-hewn wood, heavy impasto, and oxidized metals. He continues to engage in a “dialogue with the past,” recreating classical masterpieces (often focusing on the female head or the silhouette of royalty) but stripping them of detail to focus on form, volume, and the physical presence of the medium.

In the 1990s, he moved his primary studio to New York City, where he began producing monumental sculptures. His colossal bronze heads, often adorned with elaborate, wing-like headdresses or butterfly motifs, have been exhibited in prestigious public spaces globally, including Park Avenue in New York, the Place Vendôme in Paris, and the desert landscapes of Saudi Arabia.

Active in others filds : Monumental Sculpture, Printmaking (Etching/Lithography), Graphic Design.