Edouardo Chillida (1924-2002) is a Spanish Basque artist known for his monumental abstract sculptures. His public installations have become landmarks of urban culture in major cities, such as Barcelona, Berlin, Paris, and Frankfurt, among others. He is the winner of numerous rewards, including the Venice Biennale’s Grand International Sculpture Prize (1958), the Kandinsky Prize (1960), the Carnegie Prize for Sculpture (1964), the Andrew Mellon Prize (1978), the Grand Award for Arts in France (1984), and the Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award in America (1998).

In the 1950s, Chillida began to receive recognition by virtue of his installations in public parks and churches in Arantzazu and San Sebastián, Spain. His artistic reputation expanded worldwide in the 1970s as his steel sculptures were installed in Paris, Düsseldorf, and Washington DC. His dialogues with the German philosopher Martin Heidegger in the 1960s deepened his philosophical explorations of space. Characterized by geometrical form and interlinked structure, his sculptures address the relationship between empty and full space, and the conceptual relationships between materials and space. The abstract style and geometrical structure of his work, Hommage à Aime Maeght, catalogue n° 88003, in the collection, reflects the quintessential aesthetics of his sculpture.

Chillida’s works have been exhibited in the City of Paris Museum of Modern Art (1949), the Venice Biennale (1958, 1988, and 1990), the Pittsburg International (1964), the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (1966), the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh (1979), the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (1979), the Guggenheim Museum (1980), and other international shows. His works have been collected by major art institutions worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Tate Britain in London, and the Kunsthalle Basel in Switzerland.

YQL