Ralph Petty

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Profile: Ralph Petty was born in Alamosa, Colorado 1952, worked on a ranch until the age of eighteen, then moved to Fairbanks, Alaska. He then studied painting at the University of California at Davis and came to Paris in 1976 where he worked for two years with Sir Stanley W. Hayter in the Atelier 17 etching studio. He continues to live and paint in Montreuil, a suburb of Paris. He taught at Parsons School of Design Paris for ten years and since the 90s has been teaching drawing and painting at The American University of Paris and is the University Curator. He created the AUP Combes Gallery and founded the new AUP permanent art collection. Last year he cofounded "Flesh and Flora," a textile design company specializing in bed linen. He continues to paint and draw and is also a musician, saxophonist and singer. He is known for his figurative and landscape paintings, sensual nudes and drawings depicting an "underground" vision of contemporary humanity.