Ripollés (1932) - Guitarra

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

Juan García Ripollés —known as Ripollés— was born in Alzira (Valencia, Spain) in 1932. The death of his mother in childbirth took him to Castellón La Plana. His early years were not easy: he gathered horse manure, he was a junk dealer and a painter with broad brushstrokes, until he moved to 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 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, it still is: 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 engravings have been shown in the finest galleries and museums of Amsterdam, New York, Tokyo or Beijing. His large-format sculptures have been installed in parks and in the main streets and squares of Madrid, Seville, Valencia, Lisbon, Venice, Verona, Hertogenbosch or Beijing.