Manolo Valdés, a painter, sculptor, and printmaker was born in 1942 in Valencia, Spain. He began his training as a painter at the age of 15, and in 1964 he studied at the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts in Valencis, Spain. He and his colleagues, Juan Antonia Toledo and Rafael Solbes founded Equpio Crónica, which was a Spanish manifestation of the Pop Art movement of the 1960s. Valdes exhibited as a part of Equipo Crónicas and several other expositions between 1965 and 1981. Valdés began his own career in New York City, where he was featured in more than 60 solo exhibitions.

Valdés' work is included in public collections around the world, such as Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Musée Picasso in Antibes, France, the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Seville, Spain, the Kunstmuseum in Berin, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

He has received various awards, including the Lissone and Biella in Milan in 1965; the silver medal in the second International Prints Bienniel in Tokyo; an award from the Bridgestone Art Museum in Lisbon; the Alfons Oig Award in Valencia; the National Award for the Fine Arts in Spain; a medal from the biennial International Festival of Plastic Arts in Baghdad; and in 1993 the Medal of the Order of Andrés Bello in Venezuela.

Valdés lives and works in New York and Madrid, Spain.