Joan Ponç was born in Barcelona in 1927. His training as an artist began studying painting in the workshop of master Ramon Rogent.

He presented his first exhibition at the "Sala Arte" of Bilbao at the age of 20 and soon after founded the magazine Dau al Set, along with other great artists such as Joan Brossa, Modest Cuixart, Arnau Puig, Joan-Josep Antoni Tapies and Tharrats. This magazine meant the reviving of the creative impulse in post-war decayed Barcelona .

A mention in the São Paulo Biennial in 1955 gave him a scholarship to study in Brazil, and moved to Sao Paulo where he founded the group L'Espai. Ponç didn't return to Catalonia until 1962.

Ponç's work is characterized by having a very distant approach to the artistic discourse that dominated his era and represents a certain permanent existential crisis, surrounded by an intelligent, poetic and complex symbolism.

In 1984 he died at his home in Saint Paul de Vence (France).