Who is Carmen Calvo, the Valencian conceptual artist born across from the Botanical Garden?

Carmen Calvo, full name Carmen Calvo Sáenz de Tejada, was born in Valencia in 1950. Her parents were caretakers at number 45 on Calle del Turia, where she grew up, in a flat overlooking the Botanical Garden: "Mis padres eran porteros en el 45 de la calle Turia, donde nací. Había ese entorno vegetal que te rodeaba, el sonido de las campanas" ("My parents were caretakers at number 45 on Turia street, where I was born. There was this green surrounding, the sound of the bells").

Her training began with advertising studies at Valencia's School of Arts and Crafts (1965-1970), followed by the San Carlos School of Fine Arts (1969-1972). In her youth she also worked in a ceramics factory.

She spent time at the Casa de Velázquez in Madrid (1983-1985), then lived in Paris from 1985 to 1992, before returning to Valencia in 1992.

She received the National Fine Arts Prize in 2013, became an academician of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Carlos in 2014, received the IVAM's Julio González Prize in 2022, then the Ramon Llull Amic Amat Prize and the Miguel Hernández Prize in 2025.

In 2025, she exhibited at the Elba Benítez gallery in Madrid (10 May to 22 June), took part in ARCO 2025, and presented "Habitar las Sombras" at the IVAM. A public talk is scheduled for 29 April 2026 at the Centre del Carme.

"Un creador no debe perder ese punto de ingenuidad e ilusión de la infancia" ("A creator must never lose that touch of childhood naivety and wonder"), she said in an interview with the UIMP.

Photo credit: photo by Juan García (IVAM, 2019), CC BY-SA 4.0 licence, Wikimedia Commons.