Eduardo Chillida was a Spanish abstract sculptor and printmaker. Born in San Sebastián in the Spanish Basque country, he studied architecture at Madrid University from 1943 to 1947, but afterwards gave up architecture and began to draw and make sculptures. He lived in Paris from 1948 to 1950 and at Villaines-sous-Bois (Seine-et-Oise) 1950 to 1955, before moving to Hernani in Spain where he started in 1955 to forge iron and made his first abstract sculptures.
He had his first one-man exhibition at the Galeria Clan, Madrid in 1954 and in 1959 settled at San Sebastián. He also began to make sculpture in wood in 1959 and in alabaster in 1965. He was awarded the City of Venice prize for sculpture at the 1958 Venice Biennale, the Prix Kandinsky in 1960, and one of two equal prizes for sculpture (with Jean Arp) at the 1964 Pittsburgh International.
He has had a distinguished oeuvre of etchings, lithographs and woodcuts since 1959, including illustrations for Jorge Guillen's Mas Alla (1973) and various other books.