449 - Juan GARCIA RIPOLLES (born in 1932)

Juan GARCIA RIPOLLES (born in 1932) “El hombre” Color carborundum engraving Signed lower right and numbered 5/45 lower left 97 x 65 cm Framed Biography: Born in 1932 in the Valencia region, Juan García Ripollés grew up in Castellón, where he attended evening classes at the Francisco Ribalta School of Arts and Crafts. He moved to Paris in 1954 and lived there for nine years. Beginning in 1958, the Drouant-David Gallery—which had previously exhibited works by Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall—began showing his paintings. Upon his return to Spain, he settled in 1972 near Castellón, at Mas de Flors, and became a leading figure in the Valencian art scene. A painter, sculptor, and printmaker, Ripollés populates his work with figures featuring disproportionately large heads, blending reverie and irony. He draws notably on Fernand Léger’s black outline, the female figures of Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt, and, above all, the legacy of Picasso. In printmaking, he embraced unconventional materials such as sand, glass powder, and carborundum—the latter technique having been developed in the 1960s by Henri Goetz and adopted by Joan Miró.