La Reina Mariana Como Pretexto III (one of five from the portfolio)

Manolo Valdes

From a series of 5 engravings, some with collage, titled "La Reina Mariana Como Pretexto" (The Queen Mariana as a Pretext). Valdes did this in May of 1984 and the portfolio had a forward by Valeriano Bozal, a Goya scholar and Spanish art historian.

Queen Mariana (1634-1696) was born in Austria and was the Queen Consort of Spain, married to Philip IV. Valdes has used her as the inspiration for many series of works in printmaking, painting and sculpture, often deconstructing and reconstructing paintings of her by other painters, such as Velazquez.

Manolo Valdés 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. He began his own career in New York City, where he was featured in more than 60 solo exhibitions.

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.