Montse Valdés

Born in 1959 in Barcelona, Spain, Montse Valdés began drawing at an early age and spent four years in Paris and one year in Asia during her youth. Her travels back then have had an effect on her art, and following a brief sojourn in the world of theater, she decided to pursue painting at age 21 and began to create the wealth of generously sized, ethereal and peaceful portraits, nude paintings and figurative works for which she is known.

From 1981 to 1984, Valdés studied drawing, painting and pastel techniques at the Isidre Vilaseca Studio in Girona and the Artur Aldomà Puig Studio in Barcelona. For a few years beginning in 1985, she attended the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where she discovered that “the artist makes him- or herself.”

Valdés has since perfected her signature technique of applying thickly textured pastel oils with a palette knife, layering colors with sweeping strokes and dots to create her images. Viewers of her extraordinary large-format works can detect the contours of these strokes and rich swathes of color up close — one must take a few steps back to fully absorb the painstakingly detailed faces of her subjects.

Over the course of her painting career, Valdés has participated in more than 100 art fairs and exhibitions throughout the United States, Asia and Europe. She is represented by Villa del Arte Galleries, which has galleries in Barcelona, Amsterdam and Palm Beach.

Find original Montse Valdés paintings on 1stDibs.