Ripollés (1932) - Abanico

Engravings by Ripollés, hand-painted and signed on Arches paper, made in his workshop Mas 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, he was a scrap dealer and a heavy-handed painter, until he moved to 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 Drouand 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 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.
For the last five decades, his canvases and prints have been shown in the best galleries and museums of 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.