Chillida died in August 2002 and this show of nearly 50 works spans 50 years of the artist’s creative life from 1948-1999. Consisting of drawings, collages and ‘Gravitations’ the show charts Chillida’s exceptional passion and sensitivity of line, form and texture.
Chillida is considered one of the most important sculptors of the 20th Century, yet his works on paper were never a secondary art form. The works on display in this exhibition are drawings by a sculptor - but significantly not sculptural drawings: they are precise, monochromatic and exact and yet deeply personal, expressive and intuitive.
Pencil lines, paper cut outs, brush strokes and collages cut and manipulate the paper’s space and the space beyond it. Hand drawings, which Chillida produced all his life, delineate internal and external space – like figurative equivalents of his sculptures in steel.
Eduardo Chillida has had one-man exhibitions worldwide since 1954 and his work is widely exhibited in public spaces and museum collections. The Royal Academy of Arts, London, honoured him last year with a memorial room of his sculptures at the Summer Exhibition. He has received many major awards and honours for his sculpture and drawings alike.
Annely Juda Fine Art has had two one-man exhibitions of his sculptures and drawings (1992 and 1995). This exhibition of drawings is the first exhibition of his work in a commercial gallery since his death, and takes place alongside a major survey of his large scale sculptures at Yorkshire Sculpture Park.