Ripollés (1932) - Flautista

Engraving by Ripollés, hand-painted and signed, made on Arches paper, stamped in his Más de Flors workshop.

Juan García Ripollés —known as Ripollés— was born in Alzira (Valencia, Spain) in 1932. The death of his mother during childbirth led him to Castellón La Plana.

His early years were not easy: he gathered horse dung, worked as junkman and a broad-brush painter, until he left for Paris in 1954. He wanted to be a painter. And there he achieved it.

Four years after his arrival, he managed to hang his paintings in the prestigious Drouand David gallery, the same one that had exhibited Picasso and Chagall.

Since returning to Spain in the sixties, his studio is nature.

Today, at 92, it is still the same: he paints in the orchard of his manor in the small hamlet of Mas de Flors, in the province of Castellón.

During the last five decades, his canvases and engravings have been shown in the best galleries and museums in Amsterdam, New York, Tokyo or Beijing.

His large-format sculptures have been installed in parks and in the main streets and squares of Madrid, Seville, Valencia, Lisbon, Venice, Verona, Hertogenbosch or Beijing.