21. 21AR (25611787/2) MANOLO VALDES (B. 1942) Retrato de Amélie IV 2000 signed, titled and dated 2000 on reverse oil on canvas, glue, paper, string and staples mounted on canvas 200 x 150 cm. 78 3/4 x 59 1/16 in. We would like to thank the Studio Manolo Valdés for the information they kindly provided about this work. Provenance Marlborough Gallery, New York Private collection, Paris For sale at Christie's, Paris, Art Contemporain - Vente du Jour, 8 December 2016, lot 204 Acquired at this sale by the current owner Between decontextualisation and reinterpretation, the art of Manolo Valdès, with unexpected freshness, draws us into a world imbued with materiality and stories, in a cross-disciplinary dialogue with the masterpieces of Western art. From his Equipo Crónica years, the delightfully provocative artist retained the strength of his political commitment (this group, which he founded in 1964 with Rafael Solbes and Antonio Toledo, opposed Franco's dictatorship) and, from Pop Art (the generation to which he belonged), the value of images. With oxymoronic audacity, Manolo Valdès revisits the artistic heritage (Velázquez in particular) and informalism of his predecessors (Millares, Saura, Tàpies), offering a visual experience tinged with gigantism. A player, the international artist was never afraid to take on the "sacred monsters" (Rembrandt, Picasso, etc.), with disconcerting freedom. "Brancusi taught me that you can make a head without eyes," says the painter. It was during a trip to Paris as a student that Manolo Valdès fell in love with Matisse's papiers découpés, informal art and the works of the New Realists, who revealed to him their attraction for salvaged materials and the flayed texture of the "skin of cities" (Restany). From then on, the material of his work became its true subject. His art is multi-faceted and constantly reinvented, the artist playing with paint as if it were a new language, attracting the passion of collectors and institutions (his works can be seen at the Museo Nacional de la Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Kunstverein in Berlin, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, MoMA and the Metropolitan in New York). Inspired by Matisse's famous 1913 painting, Le portrait de madame Matisse, the portrait we present retains only the essence of the masterpiece: the woman, the colour and the fragrance of scandal. The asperities give this face a new vitality, the folds, seams and flat tints of colour peeling away its carnal delicacy. This fractal, scratched effigy, under the libertarian, protesting hands of Manolo Valdès, seems to make Beaumarchais's motto its own: "Without the freedom to blame, there is no flattering praise".