During the recent 20th International Ernest Hemingway Society conference celebrated in the Basque Country between San Sebastian and Bilbao, all attendees were fortunate enough to look at a complex and thought-provoking painting.
by J.I. Treku
The title of the picture is Ernest Hemingway and Euskal Herria. The drawing shows a realistic-size Ernest Hemingway, with his Basque reminiscences behind him. While he is writing, the author recalls all of his Basque memories.
Starting from the upper left corner of the painting, one can notice the following motifs: Aribe's spa resort he visited in the North of Navarre, the sheepherders he met in the American West, his beloved magical Irati Forest, and Navarrese smugglers that live near Irati´s oak and beech trees. The running of the bulls in the 1920s in Pamplona follows. A Basque boarding house in the American West and Basque women Hemingway befriended as well as jai alai players could not fail to be in the picture. The Basque gastronomy Hemingway enjoyed is shown, and finally in the center the beautiful Bay of La Concha mentioned in The Sun Also Rises is there too.
The painter who created the portrait is J.I. Treku, a renowned Basque artist who specializes in oil painting and book illustrations. This is not the first time he has worked on something related to Hemingway. He also created the cover illustration of the second Basque translation of The Old Man and the Sea in 1986.
Treku's second work related to Hemingway has been the oil painting shown at the beginning of this short article.
Iñaki Sagarna is a Basque classical historian and native of Spain. Together with Alberto Lena and Verna Kale, he co-directed the 2024 Hemingway Society Conference in San Sebastián and Bilbao, Spain.