Ripollés (1932) - Abrazo

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

Juan García Ripollés —known as Ripollés—, was born in Alzira (Valencia, Spain) in 1932. The death of his mother at childbirth led him to Castellón de la Plana. His early years were not easy: he gathered horse manure, worked as scrap metal collector and as a rough painter with a big brush, until he moved to Paris in 1954. He wanted to be a painter. And it was there that he achieved it.
Four years after his arrival, he managed to hang his paintings in the prestigious Drouant-David gallery, the same one that had exhibited Picasso and Chagall.
Since his return to Spain, in the 1960s, his workshop is nature.
Today, at 92, he is still like that: 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 finest galleries and museums in Amsterdam, New York, Tokyo or Beijing.
His large-scale sculptures have been installed in the parks and in the main streets and squares of Madrid, Seville, Valencia, Lisbon, Venice, Verona, Hertogenbosch or Beijing.