Eduardo Chillida
San Sebastián, Spain, 1924-2002
Eduardo Chillida was born in 1924 in the Spanish Basque Country. Between 1943 and 1947 he studied architecture at the University of Madrid, but left his studies in 1947. In 1947, Chillida took drawing classes and began to sculpt. Starting in 1948, he lived in Paris for three years and exhibited his works at the Salon de Mayo.
He settled in Hernani (Spain) in 1951 where he made abstract sculptures of wrought iron, taking up the tradition of the master blacksmiths of the Basque Country. In 1954 the first exhibition by Eduardo Chillida was organized and, four years later, the sculptor received the first prize for Sculpture at the Venice Biennale.
Always chasing the unaffordable, Eduardo Chillida's job is to define the emptiness that animates matter. He carves iron, sculpts granite, alabaster, steel, wood, models clay "chamottée", conceives imaginary labyrinths. Throughout the world, Chillida will make monumental sculptures for official orders.
At the same time, the artist creates an imposing graphic work, essentially engravings, in which he highlights the white color, the opposition between the empty and the full. His engravings will illustrate numerous books. In 1968 Chillida conceived, with the philosopher Martin Heidegger whose thought fascinated him, the book "Art and space".