This exhibition at Chillida Leku celebrates the centenary of Eduardo Chillida, showcasing significant works from the Telefónica Collection created in the 1980s alongside pieces from Chillida Leku's own holdings from the 1990s and 2000s. It highlights Chillida's pivotal decade of the 1980s, a period of monumental scale and deepening artistic concepts.
The exhibition ‘100 years of Eduardo Chillida with the Telefónica Collection’, opening at Chillida Leku on May 15, is a key event in the commemoration of Eduardo Chillida's centenary. The show brings together a selection of pieces from Telefónica's artistic heritage, highlighting the company's pioneering role in corporate collecting during the 1980s, a decade also marking Telefónica's first centenary. The exhibition aims to demonstrate how the 1980s were a decisive period for Chillida, marked by monumental public works and intimate explorations of new artistic concepts. Significant pieces from the Telefónica Collection, such as 'La casa de Hokusai' and 'Casa de Juan Sebastian Bach' (both from 1981), along with 'Lurras y Gravitaciones', are featured. The period also saw Chillida's personal project of acquiring and transforming the Zabalaga farmhouse into Chillida Leku museum, a deeply personal endeavor he pursued with his wife, Pilar Belzunce. The exhibition thus connects Chillida's artistic evolution with his intimate connection to Zabalaga and Chillida Leku, celebrating an artist with Basque roots and a global reach.
The Telefónica Collection holds 41 works by Eduardo Chillida, acquired in the 1980s alongside pieces by Picasso, Juan Gris, Tàpies, and Luis Fernández. This collection, now managed by Fundación Telefónica, has grown to over a thousand works and represents a commitment to culture and contemporary art. The acquisition of Chillida's works was particularly significant, initiated by then-President Luis Solana, recovering an artistic legacy that was largely outside Spain at the time. The collection's strength in Chillida's oeuvre, including sixteen sculptures and twenty-five works on paper, is considered one of the most important in the world, providing substantial relevance to the discourse of modernity within the Telefónica Collection.
