Eduardo Chillida, born in 1924 in San Sebastián, Spain, was a renowned artist celebrated for his monumental public installations and distinctive style. Initially pursuing architecture at the University of Madrid in 1943, Chillida shifted his focus to drawing and sculpture in 1947, leading him to move to Paris in 1948. Despite abandoning his architectural studies, Chillida's work reflects a strong architectural influence, marked by structural organization and a disciplined approach to materials and spatial relationships.

During his time in Paris, Chillida was inspired by ancient Greek sculptures at the Louvre and the woodblock prints of Katsushika Hokusai. He created his first plaster sculptures and exhibited at Galerie Maeght. However, feeling disconnected from the Parisian art scene, he returned to San Sebastián in 1951. His return to Spain's Basque Country in 1951 marked a significant shift in his artistic vision and choice of materials, as he began to experiment with iron, wood, and steel. He drew inspiration from the Basque landscape, sea, and industrial tradition, developing a unique artistic style that favored iron, wood, and steel over traditional bronze casting.

Throughout the 1960s, Chillida's travels to Greece, Italy, and France sparked a lifelong interest in the relationship between light and architecture. He began incorporating alabaster into his sculptures, drawn to its translucent qualities. Chillida's work also explored themes of space and materiality, characterized by interlocking sculptures that created a physically imposing experience for viewers. Throughout his career, Chillida maintained a commitment to simplicity and balance, ensuring that his chosen materials dictated the form of his work rather than imposing foreign shapes upon them. His sculptures often grapple with the concepts of space, density, and rhythm, creating works that both inhabit and define their surrounding space.

Chillida's public sculptures, known for their monumental scale, are prominently displayed in Spain, Germany, France, and the United States. His work has been the subject of major retrospectives at prestigious institutions such as the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Guggenheim Museum. He has received numerous accolades, including the Grand International Sculpture Prize at the Venice Biennale in 1958, the Kandinsky Prize in 1960, and the Jack Goldhill Award from the Royal Academy of Arts in 1996.

In 2000, Chillida founded the Chillida-Leku Museum, a monographic exhibition space in San Sebastián, showcasing his extensive body of work. He passed away on August 19, 2002, in his hometown of San Sebastián. Today, his legacy endures through his profound contributions to post-war sculpture and his innovative explorations of space and form, with his works held in prominent collections worldwide, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Guggenheim Bilbao, the Tate Gallery in London, and The Museum of Modern Art in New York.