SOLBES, Rafael (Valencia, 1940- 1981)
VALDES, Manolo (Valencia, 1942)
TOLEDO, Juan Antonio (Valencia, 1940 - 1995)

20th Century Spanish

A collective founded in Valencia in 1964 by Manolo Valdés, Rafael Solbes and Juan Antonio Toledo. Shortly afterwards Toledo abandoned the group, reducing it to the duo of Valdés and Solbes. Responding to the ideological crisis of the time, they adopted the strategy of shared production of their artworks as a reaction against the prevailing notion of the romantic individualism of abstract painting. Their painterly style was powerfully influenced by , as one can readily see in the iconography, flat colours and depersonalised drawing.

In the 1970s, the narrative drive of their work gradually gave way to more painterly concerns, both in terms of subject matters, culled from the history of art, as well as in their technique which now embraced a restrained use of volume and compositional effects such as trompe l’oeil. The political or social content of their best-known series: Autopsy of a Trade, Black Series and Game of Billiards was always coupled with a rethinking of the very act of painting itself. The group came to an end on Solbes’ death in 1981.