Biography

Nicolás Lekuona Nazabal was born on December 12, 1913 in Ordizia (Gipuzkoa), one of several children of Blas  Lekuona  and Maria Nazabal.

Lekuona  attended the Kristau-Anaien Eskola (Christian Brothers’ School) in Beasain to later move to Donostia in order to study to enrol at the quantity surveyor school in Madrid. He first exhibited his work called “industrial painting” in Ordizia in the summer of 1932, together with works by some other artists from the same town such as Sarriegi, Zurutuza, and Quílez. 

In 1932-1933 he moved to Madrid for three years to carry out his quantity surveyor studies. He lived in Goya Street and he immediately became absorbed in the richest intellectual environment. He took part in the gatherings organised by Ramón Gómez de la Serna at the Ponbo Café and also made friends with the artists Jorge Oteiza, Joakin Gurrutxaga, Pedro Mozos, and Martin Gamo.

In 1933, he won the second prize at the “New Artists’ Exhibition”, which is organised every two years.

In 1934, he exhibited, together with Oteiza and Balentziaga, his drawings and pictures. It was in this same year that he sent his “formak paisaian” (forms in the landscape) to the Basque artists’ exhibition that was held at the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum.

In the summer of 1934 he worked in Ordizia with his friends Oteiza and Sarriegi. During this period, Martin Gamo and Pedro Mozos come to visit him.

In 1935 Oteiza and Balentziaga decide to go to America. Lekuona  submits some of his works to the “Exhibition of New Artists’ from Gipuzkoa”, but they are not selected. The same year, two of Lekuona ’s drawings were published in the poetry and arts journal Noreste.

He starts working at the magazine “5” in Gasteiz, but due to the war, he has to leave the job.

In 1936, he lived in Ordizia and worked in Donostia with the architect Florencio Mocoroa. When Franco’s troops took Ordizia he joined the Falangists and worked in the “La Quincena de Gu” association created by Aizpurua, Olasagasti, Lagarbe and others as well as in the Press and Propaganda Department.

On June 11, 1936, while working as a stretcher-bearer in Fruiz, Lecuona was killed in a bombing carried out by troops of his own side due to a misunderstanding.