The Directors of Marlborough Gallery are pleased to announce an exciting exhibition of new sculpture and large-scale collaged drawings by the world-renowned Spanish artist, Manolo Valdés. This highly anticipated show will open Thursday, October 17 and continue through November 23, 2013.

This will be Valdés’ first major sculpture show at Marlborough New York since 2002 and the first show of his large-scale collaged works. There will be approximately forty sculptures ranging in size from eighteen to sixty inches in height, and to be shown on the terrace, two monumental sculptures, one in aluminum measuring fourteen by twenty-six feet and the other in bronze and cor-ten steel measuring twelve by twenty feet. The smaller sculptures will include works made from a wide range of materials such as bronze, brass, aluminum, wood and iron. Several sculptures manifest variations of Valdés’ iconic subject of a head and a headdress made up of forms taken from captivating motifs. For the most part, in this exhibition the motifs are butterflies (mariposas), delicate leaf ferns, and a swirling fan-like form. The show will also include several variations of sculptures with the theme of a woman on a horse. These works, which are about five feet in height, are both powerful and poised and evince the intrinsic elegance which defines all Valdés’ work whether in sculpture, painting, or drawing. Nowhere is this more evident than in the large-scale (ninety inches high) collaged drawings, of which the show will have approximately ten. In most of the collages the subject is a woman’s profile with a headdress and the face is covered with a translucent veil. The image recalls a Renaissance figure and the profiles are set against striking solid colors of bright pink, vivid red, emerald green, or cobalt blue, among others.

Valdés uses art from the past as a major source of inspiration. He looks to the old masters such as Velázquez, Cranach, and Fra Filippo Lippi as well as modernists like Picasso and Matisse. However, he finds more than inspiration in the works of these artists; he uses their art “as a pretext” (como pretexto) to create an entirely new aesthetic object. For example, in this exhibition the sculptures devoted to a woman on a horse are inspired by Velázquez’s equestrian portraits of the royal court of Spain, particularly that of Isabel de Borbón, the Queen of Spain from 1621-1644. Valdés distills this seventeenth-century image to its essence by eliminating everything but the form, and then recreates a new image. Like the burlap Valdes employs in his paintings, the sculptural material can appear rough-hewn; however, the image’s evocation is, contrarily, at once stately and elegant. Similar to the simplification of details in the sculptures, the collages depict only the outline of faces while the headdresses and clothing are intricately decorated. The elimination of facial features adds to the regality and timelessness of the busts, and the paper that projects from the surface in graceful curls and mounds gives them life.

In an interview from 2008, Valdés comments on the juxtaposition between the static faces of the sculptures and their dynamic headdresses, stating, “I must admit that I adore the pronounced tension that is established between the two parts; it’s as if they were two entirely different sculptures. And the challenge is having them function as a harmonious whole, as well as allowing their initial different formulation to be seen not as something separate but as something enriching.”

Valdés is one of the few contemporary artists who have successfully mastered the disciplines of drawing, painting, sculpture and print making. Born in Valencia, Spain in 1942 he began his training as a painter at the age of fifteen when he entered the Fine Arts Academy of San Carlos in Valencia. In 1964 Valdés along with Rafael Solbes and Joan Toledo formed an artistic team called Equipo Crónica. Toledo soon left the association, but Valdés and Solbes continued to collaborate until Solbes’ premature death in 1981. American and British Pop Art had a strong influence on the artists and encouraged them to use their own pop style to experiment with format, image appropriation and social and political references, specifically to the dictatorship of Franco. Following Solbes’ death, Valdés reinvented himself, creating the paradoxically muscular and refined expressive style centered on art-historical motifs that he continues to explore today.

Valdés lives and works in New York and Madrid.

Recent retrospectives of Valdés’ paintings, sculpture, and graphic work have been held at the Guggenheim Bilbao in 2002, Madrid’s Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in 2006, The Naples Museum of Art, Florida, in 2011, and the Pera Museum, Istanbul, in 2013.

Recent solo exhibitions include: Monumental Sculpture (2013), New York Botanical Gardens, New York; Manolo Valdés, À Chambord (2010), Château du Chambord, Loir-et-Cher, France; Manolo Valdés: Monumental Sculpture on Broadway (2010), Broadway Mall, New York; Manolo Valdés in Beijing (2008), National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China; Manolo Valdés, Las Meninas (2008), The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia; Manolo Valdés at Bryant Park (2007), New York, New York; Manolo Valdés. Escultura Monumental (2006-2009), organized by Arte en La Calle, Fundación “la Caixa,” Obra Social, traveled throughout Spain to Valladolid Cordoba, Valencia, A Coruña, Palma de Mallorca, Sevilla, Bilbao, Burgos, Barcelona, Saragosa, Almeria, Logroño, Salamanca, Murcia, and Málaga; and Les Menines de Valdés (2005), Jardins du Palais Royal, Paris, France.

Valdés’ work may be found in more than forty public collections worldwide, including the following: Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany; Menil Foundation, Houston, Texas; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Modern Museet Art, Stockholm, Sweden; Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; Museo Nacional Centre de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts and The Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York.