Agustín Ibarrola had been away from the media spotlight for years due to health problems, but his work had regained prominence in recent times. In 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, the Bizkaia Provincial Council organized the Agustín Ibarrola exhibition, naturally, in order to honor him on his 90th birthday. A few months later, the Museum of Fine Arts of Bilbao acquired Ibarrola’s Guernica at ARCOmadrid and organized an exhibition to which it gave maximum relevance. Three weeks ago, the new Oma Forest was finally opened to the public, after an innovative “migration” process.
In this way, Basque society was reunited with the immense work of one of its most important artists, and the institutions were reconciled, during his lifetime, with a creator with whom for years they maintained an ambivalent relationship. Today the Museum of Durango was to inaugurate a new tribute to the Basautarra artist in his lifetime, an exhibition curated by his son Irrintzi, but the heart of the Basque painter and sculptor stopped a few hours before. Agustín Ibarrola died this Friday, at the age of 93, in the Galdakao hospital, leaving behind an exceptional career, also recognized for his ethical and political commitment.
The artistic and vital journey of Agustín Ibarrola cannot be understood without paying attention to a biographical detail: he was born in a hamlet in Basauri in 1930. That is, he was born in an environment in which the industrial world of the Bilbao conurbation and the rural universe, and on the eve of the establishment of a military dictatorship that harshly repressed the labor movement. The industrial landscapes of his work, the references to the labor movement, his sensitivity to nature and his political and ethical commitment, first, against the Franco dictatorship and through the Communist Party and, later, against ETA, are understood as from the time and place in which he lived.
Naturally, his artistic career cannot be understood without paying attention to his references: the painting of Vázquez Díaz, the paintings of Aurelio Arteta in the Museum of Fine Arts of Bilbao, the influence of cubism, his time in Paris to understand the avant-garde, his participation in Team 57 or its relationship with artistic groups of the Basque School (Gaur, Emen, Orain and Danok).
Born into a working class family, Agustín Ibarrola worked from the age of 14 and at the age of 18 he entered the Bilbao School of Arts and Crafts. There he held a first individual exhibition that gave him the opportunity to move to Madrid to enter the workshop of Daniel Vázquez Díaz. From a very young age he was interested in “uniting the Basque pictorial tradition with the avant-garde currents of Contemporary Art.”
Agustín Ibarrola was invited to participate, in 1950, in the work of the Arantzazu basilica (Gipuzkoa) through a mural for the portico that, however, never materialized. Paris was his next destination, in 1956, where he worked various jobs and met those who, together with him, formed Team 57. Returning to Bilbao, in 1961, he joined the group of engravers at Estampa Popular, in the section Basque.
A member of the Communist Party, he was arrested in 1962, tried and sentenced by a military court to nine years of imprisonment. Once in prison, he continued painting and drawing, although he could not sign the works or exhibit them outside. “I got to make sculptures with the bread they gave us,” he said in an interview.
In 1965 he was released and created, together with other Basque artists, the artistic groups of the Basque School: Gaur, Emen, Orain and Danok. In 1967 he was arrested again and imprisoned in Basauri until 1969. Upon his release, Ibarrola participated in various artistic events, such as the Pamplona Art Meetings of 1972 or the Venice Biennale of 1976. In May 1975 the extreme right burned down his farmhouse. -studio, located in Gametxo (Ibarrangelu).
In 1980 he began teaching at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), but five years later he was dismissed, as it was argued, “for lacking a degree.” In 1987 the Ministry of Culture and the Madrid City Council organized a large anthological exhibition that was repeated, shortly after, in Bilbao and Zaragoza.
In 1993, Ibarolla received the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts together with the members of Team 57. In addition to having a recognized graphic and pictorial work, he experimented in the use of various materials such as railway sleepers, cardboard, wood, corten steel.
The trees of a forest near the prehistoric caves of Santimamiñe and its village of Kortezubi, became “the support of one of the most recognized aesthetic adventures of its creation.” There, Agustín Ibarrola had the dream of turning nature itself into the fundamental support of one of his works. The Boque de Oma, now migrated and valued, became his most emblematic work.
As a consequence of his activism against ETA, this work suffered several attacks, in May 2000 and March 2003. In addition, Ibarrola lived under escort between 2000 and 2012 due to his anti-terrorist militancy.
Stones and trees, in Allariz (Ourense); The Cubes of Memory, in the port of Llanes; The Ruhr sleepers, in Bottrop (Germany); o The Painted Stones in Garoza (Ávila) are other of his most recognized works.
José Ibarrola, one of the artist’s sons, considers that his father was “one of the three greats” of Basque art since the second half of the 20th century, “with Eduardo Chillida and Jorge Oteiza”
“He was very committed to his time, he lived in a very intense moment, and to the people; politically, socially and humanly; and deeply committed to art,” he commented.
José Ibarrola describes his father as a “titan”, as shown by all his work is “titanic” in terms of dimensions or his interventions in nature and his urban sculptures. He also highlights the “tremendous capacity for work and creation” that Agustín Ibarrola demonstrated, which should be a “reference for many as an artist and for his ethical attitude.”
