Eduardo Chillida (1924-2002) was a Spanish artist known for his colossal public installations. Working primarily in iron, wood, and steel, Chillida’s interlocking sculptures reflected his interest in space and materiality. Similar to fellow Spaniard Antoni Tàpies, Chillida’s work The Comb of the Wind(1977) employed geometric forms and linked shapes to create a physically imposing experience on the viewer. “The sculptures are very large and my work is a rebellion against gravity”, the artist explained. “A dialectic exists between the empty and full space”.
Born on January 10, 1924 in San Sebastián, Spain, Chillida studied architecture at the University of Madrid but turned to art and moved to Paris in 1948. Upon returning to Spain in the 1950s, his focus turned toward light, landscape, and spatial concerns.
A winner of the Grand International Prize for Sculpture at the Venice Biennale in 1958, the artist’s own museum, the Museo Chillida-Leku, opened in 2000 in Hermani, Spain. Chillida died on August 19, 2002 in his hometown of San Sebastián, Spain at the age of 78.
Today, the sculptor’s works are held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Guggenheim Bilbao, the Tate Gallery in London, and The Museum Modern Art in New York, among others.