Self-Portraits: Irene Iribarren

Written by Irene Iribarren
Published: October 14, 2026

Irene Iribarren, the painter who, as she herself affirms, “enters History with the characters she paints“, is a Spanish portraitist of great international prestige. In her almost 50 years of career she has embraced many artistic techniques. She herself reveals to us a few brushstrokes of her life.

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My name is Irene Iribarren.

I am a passionate observer of life and that has been very useful to me when circumstances and destiny led me to find myself immersed in the art world.

Irene Iribarren autorretrato

I studied Fine Arts in Barcelona, at the San Jorge faculty. This took place between 1962 and 1967. They were very intense years that revealed to me a world I would never have imagined held a place for me. I completed the Fine Arts degree courses with other specialties, such as fresco mural Painting and Chalcographic Engraving.

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There were no artistic precedents in the family, but I immediately understood that I had found my place. A surprising world, where the imagination is used continuously and allows you to transform reality at will, engaging in dialogues with the animate and inanimate world in the most natural way. An ideal place. The truth is that, looking back in time, I find that what I have devoted the most time to has been portraiture and chalcographic engraving.

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The portrait, within painting, is a very interesting subject, as long as you are observant and pay attention to the people around you. Although it is true that you need to have a sixth sense that is not the patrimony of many artists: a landscape can be done by many creators, but the human figure is another matter. I admit that I have a weakness for portraits despite the fact that they have many difficulties.

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Retrato de Felipe VI por Irene Iribarren

As for traditional engraving, it has been another facet to which I have devoted much interest and much effort, because technically it is very complicated and laborious. I spent about ten years of my life immersed in acids and tools. I did much work, combined many techniques, won the most important prizes and grants of the time, among them the Grant of the Juan March Foundation, in 1970, devoted to a research study of color engraving.

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I presented a very ambitious project that consisted of superimposing four different engraving techniques: lithography, xylography, engraved linoleum and chalcography, in a single print. The subject I chose for it was the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac. A technically very complicated work because no one had thought of doing this before me and therefore no one could advise me. When I managed to overcome all the problems and mount the exhibition in 1971, I had much echo among the specialized press and critics. The Print Cabinet of the National Library even called me to bring the collection of Signs of the Zodiac, which they immediately acquired. Later, they also acquired all the state proofs of the successive techniques, which completed the study, to have the definitive didactic collection.

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Thus began a relationship with the National Library that culminated in 1978 with an Anthological Exhibition titled 100 engraved works, which it acquired in its entirety for the Print Cabinet, where they are kept in its museum. The following year, the Academician D. Carlos Seco Serrano presented at the National Library the book Los Borbones de Espana. It was a bibliophile book, with 12 engraved portraits of the kings of the Spanish Bourbon Dynasty and text by Julian Cortes Cavanillas, a great historian and journalist. This book cost me many hours of work over more than a year and I considered that it was time to change scenery a little.

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From this moment on, I devoted myself more to painting and began to travel outside Spain, starting with the Federal Republic of Germany, Mexico and several cities in the United States, where I stayed for several years doing exhibitions and portraits, beginning with that of President George Bush.

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At the same time, I have been doing landscapes. It is a more relaxing subject, which I like very much, and not only with images of Spain, but with themes from other countries, with other forms of nature.

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At present, I continue doing portraits and paintings of all kinds… in pastel, with acrylics and with oil, but I have a project that interests me very much, and that is to use new materials and explore the digital world to do other things that a few years ago were not within our reach. Let us see what happens; I will surely come up with something different from what I have done so far, but I have come to the conclusion that one cannot live in this era setting aside new technologies.

Irene iribarren Tertulia homenaje del Cafe Gijón