Eduardo Chillida

Eduardo Chillida began studying architecture in 1943, but abandoned it after three years to follow his vocation as an artist. In 1947, he learned the basics of sculpture at the Circulo de Bellas Artes de Madrid. He created his first sculptures, preferably in plaster or clay. After a one-year stay in Paris, he returned to San Sebastian in 1950 to learn the art of working with iron in the Basque forges, the material with which he worked almost exclusively for the next 10 years. In 1951, he created his first large abstract iron sculpture, ‘Ilarik’. Later he also worked with wood, steel, granite and marble. Spatiality, space and its boundaries are at the forefront of his sculptural work. From 1959 to 1977, Chillida was a participant in the documenta Kassel four times. In 1980, the Guggenheim Museum in New York dedicated a retrospective to him, as did the Municipal Art Museum in Bonn and the Westphalian State Museum in Münster in 1989. In 2000, the museum “Chillida-Leku” was opened in Hernani near San Sebastian, which had to close in 2010 due to the financial crisis. Chillida, who is also known for his prints, is one of the most important representatives of abstract sculpture.