Ripollés (1932) - Chica con frutas

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

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 painted with a broad brush, 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 Drouant David gallery, the same one that had exhibited Picasso and Chagall.
Since his return to Spain in the sixties, his studio is Nature.
Today, at 92 years old, it is still like that: 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 prints have been shown in the finest galleries and museums in Amsterdam, New York, Tokyo or Beijing.
His large-scale sculptures have been installed in parks and in the main streets and squares of Madrid, Seville, Valencia, Lisbon, Venice, Verona, Hertogenbosch or Beijing.