Manolo Valdés, the Only Spaniard Among the Top 100 Most Auctioned Contemporary Artists

Manolo Valdés is the only Spaniard on the list of the top 100 artists worldwide who sold the most works at contemporary art auctions in 2024. The Valencian painter and sculptor, based in New York, ranks 54th, with sales amounting to $2.29 million in the annual report compiled by insurer Hiscox.

Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama tops the list with sales of $58 million. She is followed by French artist François-Xavier Lalanne ($52.8 million); American George Condo ($27.7 million); Japanese Yoshitomo Nara ($26.2 million); American Richard Prince ($15.3 million); British artists David Hockney ($14.1 million), Cecily Brown ($13.3 million), Lucian Freud ($13.1 million), and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye ($10.3 million); and French artist Claude Lalanne ($9.7 million).

Manolo Valdés (Valencia, 1942) is one of the most internationally recognized living Spanish artists. His career began in the 1960s as a co-founder of Equipo Crónica. Since 1981, he has developed his own style through the appropriation and reinterpretation of works by both old masters and 20th-century icons. Valdés revisits and formally updates Velázquez's characters (queens, princesses, and ladies-in-waiting) and other icons from great masters of art history, such as Matisse's odalisques, Calder's kinetic art, or the geometric forms of constructivism.

Valdés currently lives and works between his studios in Madrid and Manhattan. He has held numerous exhibitions and received accolades such as the National Award for Plastic Arts in 1983 and the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts in 1998. His work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums worldwide.

His iconic sculptures are displayed in public spaces in major cities. In Spain, they can be found at Barajas Airport or the Manzanares Linear Park, crowned by his grand 'Lady of the Manzanares'. 'Reinas Marianas' and an 'Infanta Margarita' can be seen in Bilbao; his 'Dama Ibérica' in Valencia; the 'Dama de Murcia' in Murcia; 'Asturcones' in Oviedo; and 'La Mariposa' in Alicante.

His works are part of prestigious private and public collections, including the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice; the Hamburger Kunsthalle in Hamburg; the Menil Foundation in Houston; the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the Moderna Museet in Stockholm; the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris; the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid; the Fine Arts Museum in Houston; and the Fine Arts Museum in Boston, among others.

"Valdés has managed to assimilate the entire history of art with his own unique and recognizable language. It's extraordinary, as it is very challenging to become a global artist," says Belén Herrera, head of the Spanish branch of Opera Gallery, a powerful multinational art company with which Valdés has worked for over a decade.

His work can be seen at this Madrid gallery in the exhibition 'Everything Has Been Said', which brings together Spanish artists from the 20th and 21st centuries and includes works by Elena Asins, Miquel Barceló, Rafael Canogar, Eduardo Chillida, Equipo Crónica, Juan Genovés, and Antoni Tàpies. With locations in over a dozen major cities worldwide, in addition to Madrid, Opera Gallery is also present in Singapore, Dubai, London, Paris, and Miami.