Chirino, Martín.
Works of the artist.
Martín Chirino (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1925-2019) is one of the most important sculptors of the recent decades. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the Círculo de Bellas Artes prize and later became president of its institution from 1982 to 1992 [+]
Chirino, Martín
Martín Chirino (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1925-2019) is one of the most important sculptors of the recent decades. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the Círculo de Bellas Artes prize and later became president of its institution from 1982 to 1992.
Martín Chirino was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria on March 1st 1925. Growing up by the sea in a place closely linked to the shipyards of Puerto de La Luz, introduced him to the passionate world of iron and wood carving.
The environment in which he grew up, significantly influenced the sculptor\'s work in the future, as his works often make reference to his childhood hometown and to the traditional Spanish use of iron as a form of artistic expression, which according to Antonio Saura, Chirino adopted with the most individualistic character.
In 1944 he began his artistic studies at the Academy of the sculptor Manuel Ramas. Later he enrolled in the Faculty of Philosophy, but shortly abandoned these studies to enter the San Fernando School of Fine Arts in Madrid. After graduating, he focused on working with iron, which he reffined during his trips to Paris and London, where he completed his training.
Martín Chirino joined the group \"El Paso\" in 1958, along with Saura, Canogar, Feito, Millares and others. After the exhibition \"New Spanish Painting and Sculpture\" at the MOMA, Chirino's presence in the US became highly prominent. From the 1970s onwards he carried out monumental projects inspired by the spiral of the wind, a vestige found in the legacy of the first settlers of his native land, the Canary Islands, while he continued his research on African history. Once established he became a prestigious representative of Spanish abstract sculpture.
From 1983 to 1990 he was president of the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, and from 1989 to 2002 he was director of the Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. He was awarded the International Sculpture Prize of the Budapest Biennial, the National Plastic Arts Prize, the Canary Islands Plastic Arts Prize, the Gold Medal for Fine Arts, the National Sculpture Prize of the CEOE, the Medal of Honour of the Círculo de Bellas Artes of Madrid and the 2003 Plastic Arts Prize of the Community of Madrid, among others. In 2004 the Royal Mint Foundation awarded him the Tomás Francisco Prieto Prize for medallistics and in 2008 he received the Cristóbal Gabarrón Foundation Prize for the Plastic Arts. He was awarded Honorary Doctorates by the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canarias (2008) and by the Nebrija University of Madrid (2011). In 2014 he was appointed Honorary Academician of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid.
Martín Chirino\'s works exemplify the remarkable depth of expression achievable through minimal use of materials. However, his large scale sculptures respond to a double impulse: on the one hand, to a dialogue between primitive art, its materiality and the native landscape of the Canary Islands, evoking the memory of wanting to push the horizon of the beaches from his childhood; and on the other hand, to a powerful symbolic impulse that generates all kinds of spatial geometries, usually curved (spirals), capable of illuminating the space that surrounds them and of being both enigma and revelation for those who contemplate them.
Martín Chirino died in Madrid on 11 March 2019.
