Menu
He was born in El Viso del Alcor on November 19, 1940. At the age of twelve, Juan felt a great attraction to Art and convinced his father to have Professor Antonio Gavira give him lessons on technique, drawing and colors in Mairena del Alcor.
The young visueño lived until his adolescence in his hometown, later moving to Madrid to perfect his technique. He first leaned towards abstract and modern art, and then towards landscape.
In 1963 he held his first two exhibitions: one in Seville at the Information and Tourism Office and another at the Town Hall of his hometown. Roldán, influenced by Saura, Millares and especially by Zobel, exhibited in cities such as Granada, Palma de Mallorca, Malaga, Barcelona, Las Palmas, Florence or London.
He got married in 1968, the fruit of which three children were born. At the beginning of the 1980s, the news reached considerable diffusion in the artistic media that a painting by Roldán, entitled ‘Andalusian Landscape’, was delivered by the Spanish Ambassador in London to Princess Anne of England. The work was very popular with the English, a people with a great landscape tradition, to the point that the prestigious Alwin Gallery contracted an exhibition with him in 1982.
Roldán Rodríguez obtained various awards and recognitions. He cultivated landscaping -his most successful theme- and made numerous illustrations for books, fans or posters for Holy Week and the Spring Festival of Seville, the Patron Saint Festival of El Viso del Alcor, the Rastrillo Nuevo Futuro, etc.
Roldán’s desire was to perpetuate and extend everything that meant hillocks, plains, trails, groves and landscapes of his surroundings, or the atmosphere, as the painter liked to call that something special that his paintings possess.
His painting, defined as hyperrealist, surrealist, etc., can be found in buildings such as the Real Maestranza de Caballería (Seville), the Museo del Ángel (Segovia), Villa Giralda (Madrid) or the Royal Buckingham Palace (London).
From the City Council of El Viso del Alcor, this illustrious visueño received honors such as the title of Favorite Son on June 28, 2001, and that a hundred-year-old street in this town and a national painting contest bear his name. At the end of December 2014, his death surprised him in Seville.
Magazine of the Festivities of the Holy Cross. Cultural Association “Friends of El Viso”. No. 3, May 1991.
Encyclopedia of Andalusia.