Birthday: 1924-01-10 - Dead: 2002-08-19
Eduardo Chillida is one of the most famous Spanish artists of the XX century. He was born the 10th of January of 1924 in San Sebastián (Spain). Between 1943-46 he studied architecture in the Colegio Mayor Cisneros in Madrid. 1947 he decided to change his orientation towards the fine art which he learned in the private Academy of Arts "Circulo de Bellas Artes de Madrid". Between 1948 and 1950 he lived and worked in Paris. He came back to Spain in 1951, where he lived together with his family until he passed away on August 19th, 2002.
Since his first exhibition in Paris, 1950, he has received almost all the existing prices trough his life. From the "German Kaiserring" to the "Principe de Asturias", from the lion of the "Biennial of Venice" to the "Wilhelm Lehmbruck Preis".
His extensive oeuvre (sculptures, gravures, collages, lithography's) has been shown in several individual exhibitions in more than twenty museums worldwide; In Germany, 1989 "Kunstmuseum Bonn" and "Westfaelischen Landesmuseum in Muenster", 1993 "Schirn-Kunsthalle" in Frankfurt, or 1998 "Kupferstichkabinett" in Berlin.
On his 75th birthday, the "Museo Reina Sofia" and the "Guggenheim Bilbao" honoured his work with two remarkable retrospectives.
His sculptures may be found spread all over the world in cities like Washington, Berlin, Madrid or Paris, and philosophers like Martin Heidegger or poets like Ocatvio Paz have written about his works.
On 2000, after creating the monument in front of the chancellery of Berlin, his own museum, the "Museo Chillida-Leku" was inaugurated in Hernani, where he was born and where he lived most of his life.
