Eduardo Chillida was born in San Sebastian, Spain, and first studied architecture in Madrid in 1942. Preferring to study drawing, he however gave up his studies in 1947 and went to Paris between 1948 and 1951. He first produced terracotta and plaster statues before switching to ironworks and took part in the exhibition of young French abstract artists in 1950 showing torsos. Back in Spain in 1951, he then produced non-figurative works renouncing to represent human figures. He limited himself to showing autonomous forms under the influence of Kandinsky. In 1955 he took part in the «Eisenplastik» exhibition at the Bern Kunsthalle and at the first Salon of Abstract Sculpture in Paris beside producing a monument dedicated to Sir Alexander Fleming in San Sebastian. Chillida, who took part in many exhibitions in Spain and abroad insisted on the purity of forms from then on. He was awarded the Sculpture Prize at the 29th Venice Biennial and that from the Graham Foundation in Chicago in 1958 and then the Kandinsky Prize in 1960. In 1959, Chillida produced his first wood sculptures but carried on with his ironworks. With wood he designed a more massive and square organisation of space with assembled beams. He also was awarded the Carnegie prize in Pittsburgh in 1964
and exhibited his wood sculptures in Paris showing his most
important works such as «Abesti Gogora II» or «Abesti
Gogora III». After exhibiting in London, he received the
Wilhelm Lehmbruck Prize in Duisburg and the Nord-Rhein Westphalen
Prize in Düsseldorf. In addition, he had a retrospective
exhibition at the Houston Museum, Texas, where he showed «Abesti
Gogora V», a 60-ton granite piece. He then took part in
the Salon de Mai in Paris and exhibited his works in various
parts of the world. Chillida’s works, which are seemingly
attempting to conquer space, appear to be quite in tune with
the paintings produced by Franz Kline or Pierre Soulages. |
