Chillida’s Lurra (Earth in Basque) series of works, of which this is a charming example, evidence the artist turning away from his established materials of metal, stone and wood, and returning to explorations of clay, a material he had rejected early in his career for its “pliable, soft, non-resistant qualities.” [1] At a glance it appears to be made of multiple parts slotted together, the deep grooves in the sculpture’s surface suggesting a hidden space within. Closer inspection into the dark of these fissures reveals them to have a bottom and confirm that the sculpture is in fact a single piece of fired clay.

This wholeness of the material is characteristic of Chillida’s pursuit to represent the material almost as a natural emergence. “Chillida saw the earth as revealing itself in the work of art. But in his Lurra pieces it is the earth placed up-right.” [2] The reduced evidence of the artist’s hand is especially noticeable when compared to his contemporaries like Giacometti, Frink and Arp (also in the collection) and ironically makes Chillida’s work just as recognisably his own.

Ceramic works such as this were produced later into Chillida’s career and foreground more soft, sometimes bodily, forms occasionally visible in earlier works. This piece appears all at once solid and squishy, almost giving the appearance of unfired clay or dough. Whilst pieces like this are more intimate than monumental, they share with Chillida’s other sculpture, and indeed, his works on paper, a sensitivity for the interplay of empty space and solid material to create “a place formed of light, the architecture that the light creates”. [3]

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