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Indepth Arts News:
"Eduardo Chillida 1924-2002"
2004-09-08 until 2004-10-11
Adam Gallery
London, ,
UK United Kingdom
Adam Gallery proudly announces moving into 24 Cork Street. The gallery is moving from Pimlico where it has been located for five years. The gallery's forthcoming exhibition programme will mainly consist of 20th century British and international works. The opening exhibition of the larger and more central gallery will show graphic works spanning three decades by revered Spanish artist, Eduardo Chillida. Born in 1924 in San Sebastian, Spain, Eduardo Chillida studied in Madrid and then moved to Paris in 1948 where he became friends with the artist Pablo Palazuelo and created his first figurative sculptures in plaster and clay.
By 1951 his work transformed into a new abstract style using materials such as wood, steel and iron. Meeting Frank Lloyd Wright, Alberto Giacometti and later Joan Miro formed strong influences for him in his use of drawing in space and light in relation to volume. He used this in graphics as well as in sculpture where, in 1950, he began working in lithography, etchings, silkscreen, and woodcuts. Since then he has created an outstanding body of quality graphic works. Since 1954 his works have been shown in the most famous international galleries and museums and one of his most important public sculptures, the concrete 'Hommage to Tolerance', was done for the World Fair in Sevilla in 1992. He was made an Honorable at the Royal Academy in 1983 and in 2003, a year after his death in his native San Sebastian, the Summer Exhibition devoted an area for his work in honour of his life and creative achievements.
Chillida's graphic works are not references to his sculptural work, but are artistic expressions in their own right and are considered of equal artistic value. In the famous essay of Chillida's graphic works written by Reinhold Hohl, it is argued that Chillida's graphic works are a preliminary stage to a "non-depicting, non-perspective and non-three-dimensionally illusionistic concept." The relationship between the concrete object and two-dimensional plane becomes purely based on the artist's concepts of space, form and volume as they become more divorced from each other in terms of artistic expression and media.
During the 1960's, Chillida's prints developed massive black planes with white internal lines to form compositions which continued well into the 1970s. These black block-like surfaces, particularly straight lines and perfect angles, gave the appearance of recognisable shapes and helped to infuse the works with a sense of order. His explorations led him to the black blocks and the 'negative' open space of the white being dependent features, co-existing and balancing the other to create the sense of unity and harmony.
Rings or circles began to be a much used form in the 1980's works and were always combined with a block-like surface or partially embedded in them. During the last part of his career, Chillida began to emboss or use relief in his graphic works which produced a strong visual element to his two-dimensional works.
IMAGE
Eduardo Chillida
Lasaitasun
Dry point
1983
Signed in pencil and numbered 7/50
S. 8.25" x 4.75"
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