Ripollés (1932) - Flautista

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

Juan García Ripollés —known as Ripollés— was born in Alzira (Valencia, Spain) in 1932. The death of his mother in childbirth led him to Castellón La Plana. His early years were not easy: he gathered horse manure, worked as a junkman, and was a rough painter with a big brush, until he left for Paris in 1954. He wanted to be a painter. And that is where 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 sixties, his workshop is nature.
Today, at 92, it still is: he paints in the orchard of his country house 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 of 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.