450 - Juan GARCIA RIPOLLES (born in 1932)

Juan GARCIA RIPOLLES (born in 1932) “The Moon” Color carborundum engraving Signed lower right and numbered 15/50 lower left 105 x 85 cm Framed under glass Description: Juan García Ripollés, born in 1932 and trained in Castellón, moved to Paris in 1954. He remained there for nine years, initially working as a house painter, before the Drouant-David Gallery—which had previously exhibited works by Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall—began showing his work in 1958. After returning to Spain in 1963, he exhibited in New York and then settled in 1972 at Mas de Flors, near Castellón. In 2001, the Valencian Generalitat awarded him its first prize for the visual arts. His world of figures with enormous heads, moons, musicians, and couples is expressed through painting, bronze and Murano glass sculpture, and printmaking. For his prints, he makes his own paper and works the material with sand, metal shavings, or carborundum—a technique introduced by Henri Goetz and adopted by Joan Miró. Fernand Léger, Gustav Klimt, and Picasso are among the artists he cites as influences on his work.