Joan García Ripollés

JOAN GARCÍA RIPOLLÉS, (Castellón, 1932).
"Figure and butterfly".
Mixed media on canvas.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 54 x 65 cm, 56.5 x 67 cm (frame).
Known by his second surname or as "the Blessed Ripo", Joan García Ripollés discovered his passion for painting when, being still very young and in the middle of the post-war period, he started working in an industrial painting workshop. From then on he dedicated himself to painting at night, and later took drawing classes at the Ribalta High School in Castellón. After his debut in a collective exhibition held in 1951 at the Caja de Ahorros de Castellón, in 1954 there was a turning point in his career, as a result of a trip to Paris where he established contact with the artistic circles of the city. He organizes his first important individual exhibition at the MACBA in Barcelona in 1962, and in 1967 he travels to New York, where he exhibits and sells his entire collection to The William Haber Art Collection. From that moment on, he began a dazzling international career that has taken his work all over the world. He has organized solo exhibitions not only in Spain, Paris and New York, but also in Mexico, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, several American cities, Germany and Japan. In 2000 he was awarded the Arts Prize of the Valencian Community. Ripollés is, today, one of the most international Spanish artists, and also one of the most complete, as he has worked brilliantly in painting, sculpture and engraving. He is represented in the IVAM, the MOMA in New York, the Museum of the University of Alicante, the Museum of Fine Arts in Seville and the MACBA.