Marcelo Barbero was born in 1904, he went to work for Jose Ramirez and later Jose Ramirez II and by the 1930s was making guitars under his own name. When Santos Hernandez died in 1943, Barbero was hired to complete unfinished Santos Hernandez instruments. Working on the Santos Hernandez guitars influenced Barbero's style until the late 1940s when his guitars began to show more clearly his own ideas. In 1951 Barbero completed his best known guitar: a flamenco guitar used by the legendary gypsy flamenco player Sabicas (Agustín Castellón Campos) on his recordings in the 1950s. These recordings helped spread Barbero's reputation within Spain and internationally: at the time of his early death in 1956 he was working on commissions from across the world.

Source: Marcelo Barbero Guitars. Twentieth-century guitarmaking legend. By R.E. Brune. Vintage Guitar Magazine