BALENCIAGA ALTUNA, Narciso - Arrona (Guipúzkoa) - 1905 – México, 1935 He began painting when he was a teenager, in a self-taught way, while recovering form an illness that kept him in hospital between the age of 16 and 21. Ignacio Zuloaga, his sponsor, oriented him and promoted his beginnings He participated in the Certamen de Artistas Noveles Guipuzcoanos, where he obtained several prizes, in 1928 the second one, the first one in 1931 and the third one in 1933. In 1934 he received a scholarship from the Diputación Floral of Guipúzcoa which permitted him to expand his pictorial studies in Segovia and Madrid. That same year he exhibited his works in San Sebastian, next to Jorge Oteiza and Lekuona, with whom he planned a trip around the world in order to study primitive cultures. They travelled to Buenos Aires in 1935.