Julián Gabino Arcas Lacal was born in Maria (Almería) on 25th October 1832. His father, Pedro Arcas, was a good amateur guitarist who followed the work of Dionisio Aguado and his school.At an early age he was to start teaching his sons Julian and Manuel, both of whom immediately showed a natural affinity for the instrument.

At the beginning of the 1850s, on one of his visits to give recitals in Seville, he is introduced to Antonio De Torres, a part-time guitar-maker, also born in Almeria but resident in Seville. The purpose of the meeting was that Arcas should test and set the pitch of a guitar made by De Torres. So harmonious did he find it that he heaped Torres with compliments and suggested he dedicate himself to making the instruments. This was to have a major effect on the history of the guitar. Encouraged by Julián's enthusiasm Torres became the most legendary guitar-maker in history. His prestige was so dazzling and his instruments so perfect that the way they were made, both in their external form and their internal design, became a model to be followed, creating a school and passing on to posterity as an indisputable classic.

Arcas and Torres developed a close friendship which would last forever. Domingo Prat wrote of the two: "Arcas had a decisive influence on the work of the great guitar-maker Antonio De Torres. The definitive change in the format of the box is due to them both."

At the peak of his career, Arcas is assessed by the contemporary music critic who was his biographer, Fargas y Soler: "Julian Arcas may be considered a worthy upholder of the art of the instrument of Sors and Aguado; for the purity and sweetness which he conjures from the strings of the guitar which he plucks with his fingertips, not so usual in today's guitar player; for the ring and expression that make the notes compete with the human voice; for his polished technique and agility with both hands; for the evenness of sound in both the high and the low notes; and for the elegance and conscientiousness of his teaching."

In 1865 he travels to Genova accompanied by the Duke and Duchess of Montpensier. In the Apolo theatre he gives two concerts that lead to requests for more performances in Italy. On his return he undertakes a concert tour of Portugal and Spain.

In 1870 Perhaps due to tiredness on account of the hectic schedule of concerts he had followed for more than 20 years of his professional career, or perhaps through prudence considering the economic and social instability Spain was experiencing on the eve of the First Republic, or perhaps in sympathy with Antonio De Torres, who had returned to Almeira between 1868 and 1870, he decides to retire to the same city abandoning public performance. In Almeria he would trade in grain. Nonetheless, we do see him giving sporadic concerts in 1873 and 1874, in Jerez de la Frontera among other places.

After failing in the grain business he returns to his career in concerts reappearing in his native Almeria in 1876 before continuing on tours of Spain.

However this second artistic period soon ends as he dies in Antequera (near Malaga) apparently of cerebral hemorrhage, on 16th February 1882.