MANOLO VALDÉS (Valencia, 1942). "Helene IV", 2005. Etching and collage on paper, copy 11/50. Signed and justified by hand. Size: 165 x 95 cm; 183 x 115 cm (frame). The game of combinations and stylistic permutations and references to the history of art was an inexhaustible source for Manolo Valdés. Here, in this collage painting, we are faced with a classic example of this playful spirit: we recognise the painting "Portrait of Helene" as the main reference. The female figure (Rubens's second wife) wrapping her nudity in a fur coat has been abstracted from her physiognomic features in Valdés's engraving, reduced to a silhouette on a black background. However, she is not entirely detached from the sensual suggestion of the original. Valdés's headdress has been composed with Warhol's silkscreen prints of Marilyn Monroe, so that with this wink two identities, two myths, seem to merge into a single body. Manolo Valdés produced a variety of versions of this same work, "Hèlene" (in graphic work and in original work), changing the silkscreen prints of the hairstyle in each case (Warhol, Liechtenstein, Miró..., among many others). Manolo Valdés introduced in Spain a form of artistic expression that combines political and social commitment with humour and irony. He began his training in 1957, when he entered the San Carlos School of Fine Arts in Valencia. However, two years later he abandoned his studies to devote himself fully to painting. In 1964 he founded the artistic group Equipo Crónica, together with Juan Antonio Toledo and Rafael Solbes, in which he remained until the latter's death in 1981, despite the fact that Toledo had left the group two years after its foundation. Since then he has settled in New York, where he currently lives and where he has continued to experiment with new forms of expression, including sculpture. Among the numerous awards Manolo Valdés has won are the Lissone and Biella awards in Milan (1965), the silver medal at the II International Biennial of Engravings in Tokyo (1979), the Bridgestone Art Museum prize in Lisbon (1979), the National Plastic Arts Prize (1983), the medal at the International Festival of Plastic Artists in Baghdad (1986), the Decoration of the Order of Andrés Bello in Venezuela (1993), the prize of the National Council of Monaco (1997), the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts (1998), the Prize of the Spanish Association of Art Critics (2000) and the Prize for the Best Print Artist (2002), among others. With Equipo Crónica, Valdés used figuration as a vehicle of expression for his approaches, for his criticisms of art, society and politics, but prioritising above all other content the pure act of painting. From the thematic point of view, Valdés was inspired by the art of the great masters of painting: Goya, Velázquez, El Greco, Ribera and Zurbarán, and he never concealed his models, but rather emphasised them, even in the titles of his works. Formally, he produces a large-format work in which the lights and colours express tactile values, due to the treatment given to the materials. His work forces the observer to delve into memory and search for significant images from the history of art. Valdés is represented in some of the world's leading museums, such as the Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Metropolitan, the MoMA and the Guggenheim in New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou and the Fons National d'Arts Plastiques in Paris, the Kusnthalle in Hamburg, the Kunstmuseum in Berlin and the Museo de Bellas Artes in Bilbao, among many others.