BIO

Eduardo Chillida Belzunce was born in San Sebastián on March 15, 1964. The son of renowned sculptor Eduardo Chillida and Pilar Belzunce, he is the youngest of a family of eight children, an equal balance of four boys and four girls.

From a very young age, Eduardo showed a strong interest in art. At the age of five, he created his first sculpture using clay given to him by his father. This small terracotta piece depicts a woman seated in a chair with her arms resting behind her head and her legs crossed. While the technical skill of the piece may not be striking, what stands out is Eduardo’s early ability to convey the plasticity of the female form, a testament to his natural artistic vision.

Several drawings by Eduardo Chillida of his son as a child portray Eduardo always engaged in some form of creativity, whether seated or lying down, but always with a pencil and paper in hand. His early desire to “become an artist when he grew up,” as he often declared, seemed to eclipse his interest in formal education.

After brief stints at the Escuela de Artes de Deba and the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid— where he had the privilege of studying under painter Antonio López—as well as at the Escuela de Artes y Oficios in Madrid, Eduardo turned his focus to sculpture and later also to painting.

In his late teens, between the ages of 17 and 20, Eduardo worked with stone, alabaster, terracotta, and bronze. He spent a period in the studio of his brother Pedro, the eldest of the Chillida boys and Eduardo’s godfather. Pedro had studied Philosophy and Letters and set up a studio near the family home, where the two would paint, talk, and freely explore their respective artistic paths.

In 1985, Eduardo was involved in a serious motorcycle accident that left him in a coma for a month and a half. Defying doctors’ predictions, he managed to recover his speech, learn to walk again, and eventually, with great effort, return to a normal life. The accident left him partially paralyzed on one side, forcing him to become left-handed to continue painting.

In 1986, Eduardo moved to Madrid with his brother Luis, sharing a student apartment. This move was both a test and a statement, proving to himself and others that he could live independently. He continued painting during this time, though he did not return to sculpture—a part of his artistic identity that seemed to lie dormant in his mind until 2010, when he picked up sculpture once again with his left hand.
In 1987, Eduardo spent six months in New York, staying with his sister Susana.

He enjoyed walking through Central Park and visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which he fondly referred to as visiting “my painter friends.” Following his habit of painting wherever he stayed for more than a few days, Eduardo continued to paint at his sister’s home while his brother-in-law, Eduardo Iglesias, worked on his own writing, and Susana pursued her doctoral thesis at Columbia University.

Upon his return to San Sebastián in 1988, Eduardo held his first solo exhibition at Galería Dieciséis. A year later, in 1989, he met Susana Álvarez, a journalist working in advertising.

They married in September 1991 in Amasa, a village near San Sebastián, and went on to have four children: Eduardo (born in 1993), Laura (1995), Pablo (1998), and Miguel (2004). They also shared a professional life, with Susana managing Eduardo’s exhibitions and supporting him throughout his artistic career.

Throughout his life, Eduardo has been deeply committed to charitable, social, and religious causes. His work has been part of numerous charity exhibitions, and two of his murals—the “Beste aldean” mural in Zuloaga Square and the “Homenaje al Señor” mural in San Sebastián Mártir Church—were donated to benefit organizations, the first for the DYA and the second for the Catholic Church.

In 2010, Eduardo traveled to Mexico with Susana, staying with Heberto Guzmán, who
encouraged Eduardo to return to sculpture. Upon his return home, Eduardo began sculpting again, producing around twenty sculptures between 2011 and 2013.

In 2015, he took a significant step forward, creating six large bronze sculptures, which were unveiled at the Louvre plaza in Paris in 2017 and 2018.

Since then, his sculptures have been exhibited in various notable locations, including the atrium of the Church of San Vicente in San Sebastián—the city’s oldest church and London’s Lower Grosvenor Gardens, a charming park near Buckingham Palace.

In 2023, in a remarkable display of resilience and determination, Eduardo painted a piece with his right hand—the hand that had lost its mobility in the 1985 motorcycle accident.

And in 2024, as he celebrates his 60th birthday, Eduardo plans to unveil his abstract works to the public for the first time, marking a significant shift in his artistic practice. These abstract beginnings, often concealed beneath his figurative paintings, will come to light at Estudio

Laterna in Ibiza. This new phase of his work is characterized by a powerful, dreamlike quality that, like all his creations, emerges, in his father’s words, “from his guts.”
In his daily life, Eduardo continues to pursue his passion for art, never losing sight of the love and connection he shares with his family and his true friends.
Susan Alvarez San Martí