Augustin Ibarrola

Agustín Ibarrola - Without title

Biografía del Artista: Born in Bilbao in 1930 to a working-class family, he soon enrolled at the School of Arts and Trades in Bilbao and held his first solo exhibition in 1948. Following this exhibition in the capital of Biscay, he moved to Madrid and joined the studio of Daniel Vázquez Díaz. From a very young age he became interested in combining the Basque pictorial tradition with the avant-garde currents of Contemporary Art. In 1950 he was invited to participate in the work on the Basilica of Arantzazu (Gipuzkoa). He was commissioned to create a mural for the portico, although it was never completed. He travelled to Paris in 1956, where he carried out various jobs and met the people who, together with him, would form Team 57. He returned to Bilbao in 1961 and became part of the group of engravers of Estampa Popular, in the Basque section. As a member of the Communist Party, he was arrested in 1962 and sentenced to nine years in prison by a military court. He continued to paint and draw in prison, although he was not allowed to sign his works or exhibit them outside. A year later, Appel for Amnesty organised an exhibition of these "illegal" works in London, Paris, Belgium, Germany and Italy. In 1965 he was released and, together with other Basque artists, he embarked on the creation of the artistic groups of the Basque School, Gaur, Emen, Orain and Danok. In 1967 he was arrested again and imprisoned in Basauri (Bizkaia) until 1969. He participated in various artistic events such as the Pamplona Art Meetings in 1972 and the Venice Biennale in 1976. In May 1975, the extreme right burned down his farmhouse-studio, located in Gametxo (Ibarrangelua). He began the 1980s as a professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of the Basque Country, although five years later he was dismissed, theoretically, for lacking a degree. In 1987 the Ministry of Culture and the Madrid City Council organised a large retrospective exhibition which was repeated shortly afterwards in Bilbao and Zaragoza. In 1993 he received the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts together with the members of Team 57. In the 1980s, Ibarrola began a period of experimentation with the use of various materials such as railway sleepers, cardboard, wood, Corten steel, and also began the period that would lead him to carry out a long series of artistic interventions in nature. This experimentation, sustained over time, has given rise to projects that transcend the rigid boundaries of styles and trends, such as “El Bosque de Oma (Kortezubi, Bizkaia)” (1982-2003), the missing painted stones in the Tremoia sinkholes, 1993 (Arteaga, Bizkaia), the intervention “Stones and Trees” (1999) in Allariz (Ourense), “The Cubes of Memory” (2001-2006) in the port of Llanes (Asturias), the installation composed of more than 80 polychrome and carved sleepers on top of the Prosper Haniel – Ruhr Coal Hill in Bottrop (Germany) (2002), or the Painted Stones in Garoza (2005-2009, Muñogalindo, Avila). During the first decade of the 21st century he donated numerous sculptures in homage to the Victims of Terrorism (Santander, Andoain, Ermua, Vitoria, Logroño, Alicante or Murcia) which constitute a wide and varied catalogue of sculptures in public spaces. His anti-terrorist activism meant that he had to live under escort from 2000 to 2012. The Oma Forest suffered two ETA terrorist attacks in May 2000 and March 2003. Ibarrola continues his artistic activity in the studio of his farmhouse in Oma (Kortezubi, Bizkaia), producing works (paintings, sculptures, engravings) in both small and large formats, researching with all kinds of materials in a permanent multidisciplinary transfer and configuring an authentic laboratory of ideas, languages ​​and personal expressions.