Eduardo Chillida

Eduardo Chillida (San Sebastián, 1924-2002) was undoubtedly one of the most important sculptors of the 20th century. In his first phases, he made a series of sculptures in plaster and terracotta, influenced by the figurative tradition, only to turn towards the abstraction showcasing the concepts which would constitute his later work, such as space, material, emptiness, and scale. Chillida did not operate with clay but with chamotte earth, otherwise known as grog or firesand, a material that can be worked with as a solid, compact block. Chamotte is baked soil containing iron oxide and highly resistant to excessive temperatures. The sculptor's discovery of this material came about through hearing, an essential part of Chillida's process. Chillida approached the material through his senses and was guided by intuition. In the early seventies, while working in the engraving workshop of the Maeght gallery in Saint Paul de Vence, he experienced the sounds produced when the earth hit the work surface. From that moment on, he started to make his Lurrak ("earth" in Basque) and Óxidos, primitivist blocks with soft shapes that radiate certain internal energy. He was born into a family of traditional and catholic beliefs, and he first started his studies in Architecture in 1943 in Madrid, but decided to leave and move to Paris in 1948. During his time in Paris, he became friends with the painter Pablo Palazuelo and became acquainted with the works of Picasso, González, and Brancusi, but was also particularly captivated by the archaic Greek sculptures in the Louvre. After this period in Paris, he decided to move back to his home country. In 1951, he settled down in the Basque country with his wife Pilar Belzunce, to whom he got married in the prior year. He started working in the forge of Manuel Illarramendi, who taught him the art of forging. In the same year, Chillida created his first abstract sculpture called Ilarik, which marked a turning point in his artistic career. He received international recognition in the course of the 1950s with exhibitions in London, Paris, New York, Chicago, and many more, as well as winning the International Grand Prize of the Venice Biennale in 1958. Chillida is also known for his grand-scale sculptures in public spaces, such as Madrid, Barcelona, Frankfurt, and other cities. In 1999, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao showed a retrospective celebrating Chillida's 75th birthday, displaying over two hundred works within the artists oeuvre.