Manuel Sáez
1961– · Spanish painter and illustrator, self-taught
Manuel Sáez (Castellón, 1961) is a self-taught Spanish visual artist associated with the generation that emerged in the 1980s. Since 1984 he has lived and worked in Valencia, although during the 1980s he also worked in Barcelona and Madrid. His work belongs to figurative painting of everyday subjects: objects, landscapes, figures and portraits, approached with a sensual and psychological gaze.
In the late 1980s he explored playful imagery in painting and its history, combining elements of comics, the mass media and art history. From this period date the series Calvos, Bodegones, Árboles, Aviones and Arquitecturas. In 1990 he was a fellow at the Spanish Academy in Rome, where he began a portrait series titled Biografía no autorizada, which later developed into his ongoing Retratos series. In 1995 he travelled to the Dominican Republic to work on drawings and watercolours of objects from the tropical landscape.
His style rests on refined drawing and a constant investigation of colour, the figure and the world of objects. Among his exhibitions are the retrospective Colección Exclusiva 1984-1995, the Museo Rufino Tamayo in Mexico City and the IVAM in Valencia. He also created a large ceramic mosaic for the agora of the Universitat Jaume I in Castellón. His work is held in collections such as the Banco de España and the Museo de Bellas Artes de Castellón.