León Barrenechea Torralba was born in Irun, in 1892, and died in Paris, in 1947. At the age of fifteen he moved to Bilbao to study drawing at the School of Arts and Crafts, and subsequently to Madrid, where he studied sculpture for six years . He received distinctions for his work since he was young, such as the first ex aequo prize with Julio Beobide in the Novel Artists Contest of the Provincial Bank of Gipuzkoa, in 1920.
He made busts of contemporary celebrities; but he also portrayed Basque popular guys in stone, marble or bronze, especially work or sports scenes: trawler boat reaces, ox bets, stone lifting, etc. He managed to convey the feeling of effort very well thanks to the importance he attached to depict the muscles. This work is a good example, since it reflects the hard work of plowing the land by hand.
Registration number: GFA-049007-001
