Eduardo Chillida
Spanish, 1924 - 2002
Spanish sculptor, draughtsman and printmaker. He studied architecture from 1943 to 1947 at the University of Madrid but in 1947 began to sculpt, producing his first mature works while living in Paris from 1948 to 1951. Some of his earliest works were in plaster and clay, but he soon preferred more durable materials such as iron, granite and alabaster. He first exhibited at the Salon de Mai in Paris in 1949 and thereafter showed his work internationally.
Chillida’s abstract sculpture is concerned largely with the projection of mass into space (see [not available online]). He often favoured large, bulky and block-like intersecting shapes, or else attenuated, spiky forms that reach out to the viewer like the prongs of a fork; the latter can be seen as elaborations of the idiom of iron sculpture established by Julio González and Picasso and adapted to more abstract ends in the metal sculptures of David Smith. Chillida created a number of site-specific public sculptures, notably Meeting Place IV (1973–4) for the outdoor sculpture museum on the Paseo de la Castellana in Madrid; Wind Combs (1977), a series of sculptures installed on large rocks on the shores of San Sebastián; and a large installation erected in 1980 in the Plaza de los Fueros in Vitoria, Alava. The Fundación Chillida was established by the artist’s wife in 1984 in Zabalaga with the aim of documenting his work.
Edward J. Sullivan. "Chillida, Eduardo." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T016495 (accessed April 16, 2012).
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