Artist: Eduardo Chillida

Eduardo Chillida (1924-2002), one of the most remarkable sculptors of the second half of the 20th Century, never stopped examining space and shape, working with a variety of materials, including iron, wood, granite, alabaster, clay, as well as more contemporary materials such as concrete and steel. He also drew, cut-out, pasted and engraved. Chillida’s work on paper always occupied an important place in his creative process. The prints exhibited at the bookshop illustrate his need to address full and empty spaces in a two- dimensional work. The density of the material is illustrated by the black; its absence is the white. At times, Chillida seeks the opposite effect. When he engraves, he traces the lines but he also studies the defects in the plate, creates others, selects the grain and the texture of the paper – matt, thick or smooth – and adopts sometimes surprising page layouts. His prints are dense, limited, and demanding. They have been exhibited in several museums and compiled in a catalogue raisonné in ten volumes. For this new exhibition at the Lelong Gallery, at 13 rue de Téhéran, where Chillida has been exhibited from 1950 onwards, the focus is on rare etchings from the 1960s and 70s.