The sculptor Eduardo Chillida, one of the most outstanding figures of the Spanish visual arts scene, was born in San Sebastián on the 10th January, 1924. After dropping out of a degree in architecture he moved to France to concentrate on sculpture, first living in Paris and later in Villenes. At the age of 26 he returned to the Basque Country and settled in Hernani, where he made his first work in iron - a memorial - and learned the secrets of the forge and handling the bellows from the village blacksmith.

Before becoming a sculptor he had been the goalkeeper of San Sebastian´s Real Sociedad football club, a profession which he left due to an injury he suffered in Valladolid and which stopped him from playing. Chillida has always spoken about the close relationship between being a goalkeeper in football and a sculptor: a cosmos in which space, limit and matter come into play.

In 1951 he created his first non-figurative work - "Ilarik" - in which awareness of space was outlined as a material and at the same time symbolic element. After working in iron for ten years, including the doors of Aránzazu cathedral (1954), he returned to large granite sculptures at the start of he Sixties.

After presenting his first exhibition in Madrid, in 1954, resounding performances and successes followed one after another: diplomas of honour at the Milan Triennial (1954), first individual show in Paris (1956), the "grand prix" of sculpture at the Venice Biennial (1958), the Kandinsky Prize in Paris (1960), the Providence, Rhode Island Arts Club prize (1961), the Wilheim Lehmbruch Prize (1966), etc.

In 1981 he was decorated in Spain with the Gold Medal for Fine Arts. He also received the Europe Award in 1983 in Strasbourg, from which he donated the cash prize - twenty thousand marks - to alleviate the damage done by the floods in the Basque Country.

The works of Eduardo Chillida are spread over America and Europe: Houston, Washington, Paris, Düsseldorf, San Sebastián, Vitoria, Madrid, etc. In 1980 he gave a great retrospective exhibition of his work in the Crystal Palace in the Retiro Park, Madrid.

In the opinion of some critics, Chillida´s evolution as a sculptor has been marked by rebellion. The artist himself points out architecture as the element which is capable of releasing this internal rebellion. This constant pushing back of the limits of the means of construction is what has given his work its originality, his monumental pieces their lightness, and which has allowed such solid elements as concrete and steel, without losing their own being, to be freed of their heaviness.

Among his best- known works, perhaps the most impressive are "El peine de los vientos" ("The comb of the winds") and the tremendous "Gure aitaren etxea" ("The father´s house"), a tribute to the tree of Guernica in the town itself in Bizcaya. His work "Elogio al horizonte" ("Eulogy for the Horizon") installed in Gijón, is considered as one of the high points of his artistic career.

There is a well- known anecdote which he himself tells about his use, in his early years, of his left hand to draw, fleeing from the ease of using his right hand. This brake, the retardant element, this initial clumsiness, allowed him to create a space for reflection and, at the same time, to direct his work, not so much towards what is easy or already known, but rather towards what is unknown and difficult.

Chillida has also shown great mastery in numerous drawings, among which his hand drawings, xylographs and etchings are noteworthy. His graphic work has appeared in the company of texts by Heidegger, Jorge Guillén, Cioran, Edouard Jabés and Max Holzer.

Alongside his work in sculpture, he has produced a small, but interesting output of paintings.