Ripollés (1932) - Tamborilero

Engraving by Ripollés, hand-painted and signed on Arches paper, made in his workshop in Mas de Flors, 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 picked up horse dung, he was a junkman and a heavy-handed painter, until he left for Paris in 1954. He wanted to be a painter. And there 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 is still so: 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 best galleries and museums of 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.