Ripollés (1932) - Guitarrista

Etching by Ripollés, hand-painted and signed, on Arches paper, made in his Más de Flors workshop, in perfect condition

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 manure, was a scrap dealer and a heavy-painting painter, until he left for Paris in 1954. He wanted to become 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 courtyard of his manor in the small hamlet of Mas de Flors, in the province of Castellón.
Over the past five decades, his canvases and prints have been shown in the finest galleries and museums in Amsterdam, New York, Tokyo or Beijing.
His large-format sculptures have been installed in parks and main streets and squares of Madrid, Seville, Valencia, Lisbon, Venice, Verona, Hertogenbosch.