Juan Ballesta Biography
Germany, 1935
Juan Ballesta is a Spanish artist renowned mostly for his work as a cartoonist and illustrator, writer, journalist, author of comics, and painter. Furthermore, as a satirist of the political international and national world he has dedicated to analyzing life in two ways, cartoons and painting.
He began to publish in the Informaciones de Madrid newspaper in 1953 and his comedic drawings appear in Don Jose, and much later in La Codorniz. In 1958 he moved to London where he studied at the School of Art at Saint Martin at the same time that he published in newspapers and magazines like the Daily Mirror, The Tatler, Lilliput Review, amongst others.
In 1965 he travelled to Italy with the Juan March scholarship to study engraving in Perguia. He stayed in Italy until 1978 working in publicity and collaborating with magazines and editorials: L'Espresso, Linus, Rizzoli, Panini, Feltrinelli, etc.
In 1978 he returned to Spain and incorporated himself in the Group16. During the years until 1990 he collaborated regularly in all the publications of the group: Cambio 16, Motor 16, Diario 16. After 1979 he would also be artistic director of Cambio 16 for some years. After the dissolution of Group16 he dedicated less to humor and more to painting, which is more of what he is passionate about in this moment.
His vignettes have been reproduced amongst others in Le Monde, Washington Post, Herald Tribune and Courrier International. His works are exhibited in Basil, Paris, and Spain.
