EDUARDO CHILLIDA JUANTEGUI (San Sebastian, 1924 - 2002) and EDMOND JABÈS (Cairo, 1912-Paris, 1991).
"Placard".
Silkscreen on Arches paper, copy 112/500.
Hand-signed by both artists.
Maeght Editeur, Paris.
Printed by Arcay Paris.
Work catalogued in "Eduardo Chillida. Opus P.II. Complete catalogue of the graphic work 1973-1985), Martin van del Koelen, ed. München Mainz, 1997, p. 118, ref. 75014.
Size: 95 x 62 cm; 110 x 77 cm (frame).
The collaboration between the Jewish writer Edmond Jabès and the Basque artist Edudardo Chillida was evident in the work "La Mémoire et la Main", in which there was a clear link between the etchings and the poems of both artists. The silkscreen print on display contains a poem by Edmond Jabès and is signed by the artist and the writer. It was published on the occasion of an exhibition at Galeria Maeght.
Chillida began his training at the School of Architecture at the University of Madrid, but abandoned his studies to devote himself to football, as goalkeeper for Real Sociedad. As a result of an injury he was forced to give up sport, and it was then that his artistic vocation awoke. He began drawing at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, and little by little his interest in sculpture grew. It was during his years in Paris that he made his first plaster sculptures, impressed by the archaic Greek sculpture in the Louvre. He held his first sculpture exhibition in the French capital in 1950. In 1951 he returned to San Sebastian for good, and made his first work in iron, the material with which he would work for the rest of his life. With the idea that art should be accessible to everyone, he produced numerous public works throughout his life, as well as sculptures for museums all over the world. His works dialogue with their surroundings, which is why many of them are already considered emblematic places for citizens, as is the case with the "Peine del viento" in San Sebastian and the "Puerta de la Libertad" in Barcelona. Throughout his life, Chillida received numerous prizes and awards, including the Carnegie Prize, the Rembrandt Prize, the Wolf Foundation Prize for the Arts and the Prince of Asturias Prize for the Arts. He was also an academician of San Fernando, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Honorary of the Royal Academy of Arts in London and of the Imperial Order of Japan, and was awarded the Grand Cross for Humanitarian Merit by the Institution of the same name in Barcelona. In addition to his Chillida-Leku Museum in Hernani, he is represented in museums and collections all over the world, such as the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the MOMA in New York, the Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Tate Gallery in London and the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin.