Ripollés (1932) - Abanico

Engraving by Ripollés, hand-painted and signed 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 de la Plana.
His early years were not easy: he collected horse manure, worked as a scrap dealer and a broad-brush painter, 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 Drouand David gallery, the same one that had exhibited Picasso and Chagall.
Since his return to Spain in the 1960s, his studio is nature.
Today, at 92, it 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.
Over the past 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 the parks and main streets and squares of Madrid, Seville, Valencia, Lisbon, Venice, Verona, Hertogenbosch or Beijing.