Federico Garcia Lorca was born in 1898, in Andalusia, Spain. A poet and dramatist, and also a gifted painter and pianist, his early popular ballads earned him the title of 'poet of the gypsies'. In 1930 he turned his attention to theatre, visiting remote villages and playing classic and new works for peasant audiences. In 1936, shortly after the outbreak of Civil War, he was murdered by Nationalist partisans. His body was never found.