BALLESTER José Manuel
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José Manuel Ballester (1960) is a Madrid-based artist who is fast becoming known as one of the most original and impressive photographers in the world. His is the generation that definitively transformed photography from a minor to a major art, a shift reflected in the works of Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth, Candida Höfer and Jeff Wall, among others. Their large-scale photographs, made possible by digital technology and mounted on solid supports, have in many ways and for many collectors replaced the pleasures that painting once delivered.
Although he began as a painter and printmaker—two activities he continues to pursue along with the photography for which he
is best known—Ballester graduated the University of Madrid with a degree in fine arts not as a painter, sculptor or photographer but as a restorer of Flemish and Italian old masters; he had wished to learn concrete techniques. This commitment to a deep understanding of technique is characteristic of his methodical, intellectual approach.