Antonio Marín Montero

Antonio Marin was born in Granada in 1933. He started his career as a cabinetmaker. His friendship with Manuel Bellido led him to visit Manuel when he worked as a guitar maker in the workshop of Maestro Eduardo Ferrer. The guitar makers’ precarious way of working contrasted with the innovations happening in cabinetmaking strongly called Antonio Marín's attention. Both, Marin and Bellido, decided to work together and began to build bandurrias and lutes before building their first guitars which they would sign as Montero Bellido. The training of both as cabinetmakers led them to develop new systems to perfect and evolve their instruments, and as a result their guitars soon acquired a remarkable quality. The famous guitarist Manuel Cano introduced them to the luthier Manuel Contreras, who began to send them wood from his Madrid store to build guitars. Shortly after, Antonio Marin and Manuel Bellido began to export guitars to Japan, and some Japanese clients introduced them to the then famous French guitar maker Robert Bouchet, in 1977. After the dissolution of the Montero Bellido association, Antonio Marin spent some months in France working in Robert Bouchet's workshop, where he built three instruments together with the French luthier. Upon his return to Spain, Maestro Marin asked Bochet for his permission to continue building the same guitar they had developed together, and which he continues to build to this day.

Over time, Antonio Marin became the biggest name in the Granada School of Guitar making, and his instruments are appreciated worldwide. He is also the maestro of other guitar makers of great prestige such as his nephew Jose Marin Plazuelo and Jose Gonzalez Lopez, with whom he shares the workshop, and of others such as his nephew Paco Santiago Marin, Rene Baarslag or Rafael Moreno.

Since 2017, the Granada International Guitar Festival has organized an annual construction contest named after him, the Antonio Marín Guitar Making Contest.

Currently at the age of 90, Maestro Atonio Marin continues to build guitars in his workshop in Granada.