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Ibarrola's political commitment led him to produce a figurative art as a vehicle for explicit messages, close to poster art and with a tendency towards mural art, which also relates him to the propaganda art of the 1930s, with socialist realism (some of his themes and motifs can be found in the work of Alexander Deineka), with Sironi and other Italians of the time, and with Mexican mural artists.

Like Arteta, Ibarrola's main themes are industrial work and the agricultural world and the sea, although in his case, the work is much more clearly moved by social and political demands, portraying social conflict and a general attitude of protest, when not the image of a proletariat exalted by its historic destiny. His woodcuts from the 1960s and 1970s testify to the most important and significant episodes of the social struggle in the province of Bizkaia.

In his desire to make his message as clear as possible, Ibarrola's work became increasingly simplified and cartoonish. If Worker Delivering a Harangue, an early work of social figuration, seeks to describe in Expressionist terms the image of an episode in a factory with workers up in arms. (Javier Viar)

Selected bibliography

• Guía Artistas Vascos. Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2008. pp. 139-140.
• Gida Euskal Artistak. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Eder Museoa, 2008. p. 139.
• Guide Basque Artists. Bilbao, Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, 2012. pp. 138-139, n° cat. 76a.
• Después del 68 : arte y prácticas artísticas en el País Vasco, 1968-2018 [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2018. p. 359.