“We build upon that which art history has placed in our hands. For me, this is a splendid excuse to discuss something else, to talk about human life more generally.”
—Manolo ValdésExecuted in 2009, Daphne 1 exemplifies the allusive prowess of Manolo Valdés, a pivotal and prolific figure of the Spanish Pop Art movement. Celebrated for his sleek, daring appropriations of the Western canon, Valdés has cultivated a multitudinous mastery of craft across his six-decade career. Reimagining fragments of Velázquez, Goya, Matisse and Picasso, Valdés possesses the oeuvre of an artist, historian and translator; his distinctly contemporary aesthetic transforms familiar icons into investigations of shape and materiality. Valdés turns to the past to innovate, confronting ancient and modern masters with reverence, skepticism and fresh eyes.
At once ornate and austere, the striking bronze bust Daphne 1 wears a crown of geometric laurel – a twofold reference to Roman mythology and the legacy of Old Masters such as Tiepolo, Rubens and Bernini. The myth of Apollo and Daphne was first immortalized in Ovid’s epic poem, the Metamorphoses, whose fables of transformation are inseparable from Western art today. Apollo, cursed with unrequited love, happens upon Daphne in the forest, but when the maiden nymph flees from him, he ruthlessly pursues her. Understanding her fate as capture or death, Daphne prays to be disfigured and therefore undesirable; instead, she becomes a laurel tree, sprouting branches and leaves as Apollo finally grasps her.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Apollo and Daphne, 1622–1625, Borghese Gallery, Rome. Image: Godong / Alamy Stock Photo Ovid’s story of terror and transformation was viscerally and infamously rendered in Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne, a beautiful and violent swirl of marble. Loyal to his literary inspiration, Bernini imagined Daphne as ethereal, pliable and void of control. Her body is seized by Apollo and nature simultaneously, pressing into and contorting her flesh; unprotected by delicately sprouting leaves, her mouth falls open in agony.
To reinvent this powerless nymph, Valdés answers Bernini without foliage or fear. Discarding Apollo entirely, the bronze bust begins with simple, precise curves, emblematic of Constantin Brancusi. The face and neck of Daphne 1 are remarkably understated, offering elegant suggestions of a nose and brow in the unyielding metal. Above her featureless expression, however, is a forbidding canopy of bronze rods, sharp as barbed bramble and strong as armor. This sculptural juxtaposition is essential to Valdés, who melds static and dynamic registers into “a harmonious whole…allowing their initially different formulation to be seen not as something separate but rather as something enriching.”i
The dissonance of Daphne’s physical representation mimics her myth: her headdress is equally a crown, helmet and enclosure, offering protection while immobilizing the body beneath. Even her smooth features are fraught with tension: Valdés works from waste materials, forging studio scraps into sublime technical feats. The raw, disjointed flesh of Daphne – a stark contrast to Bernini’s illusory marble – preserves the disquieting reality of Ovid’s myth.
Forging millennia into a concise, contemporary whole, Daphne 1 epitomizes Valdés’ extraordinary knowledge of the Western canon. Sweeping away history’s debris, he executes his appropriations with an archaeologist’s hand, exploring anew the essential truths of artists before him. Nonetheless, Valdés’ art historical interrogations do not sacrifice aesthetic mastery; his contemporary transformations are eternally faithful to the beauty of their predecessors.
“Her hair turns to leaves, her arms to branches… a canopy holds her head. Only elegance remains in her.”
—Ovid, Metamorphoses, 1.549-551iManolo Valdés, quoted in Violant Porcel, “Conversation with Manolo Valdés,” Manolo Valdés: Paintings and Sculptures, exh. cat., Istanbul, 2013, p. 27.
Condition Report
Description
View our Conditions of Sale.
Provenance
Galería Freites, Caracas (acquired directly from the artist in 2009)
Acquired from the above by the present owner
29
Daphne I
stamped with the artist's initials and number "M.V. 3/8" on the base
bronze
37 1/2 x 41 1/2 x 29 1/4 in. (95.3 x 105.4 x 74.3 cm)
Executed in 2009, this work is number 3 from an edition of 8.
Estimate
$200,000 - 300,000
Avery Semjen
Specialist, Head of New Now Sale
T +1 212 940 1207
asemjen@phillips.com
New Now: Modern & Contemporary Art
New York Auction 25 September 2024