The Late Sculpture That Set Eduardo Chillida's Auction Record

Eduardo Chillida's Buscando La Luz IV (Looking For The Light IV) (2001) sold for $6.31m (£4.09m) at Christie's in London on June 25, 2013. The Corten steel sculpture had not been traded before.

The sculptor's ambitious late work, conceived a year before he died, played a pivotal role in the Guggenheim Bilbao's 2006 tribute to the Basque country's most famous Modern artist. Afterwards, it stood for several years in a square in Bilbao. It is now part of the Qatar Museums' collection and is installed outside Qatar University, Doha.

Chillida's monumental sculpture is an homage to the light of the Basque country, its dark, mineral-rich earth and ancient megaliths. It exists as three, unique iterations. One is at the Museo Chillida-Leku, a 27-acre sculpture park near San Sebastian that was formerly the Chillida family's farmhouse.

Another smaller scale version of Buscando La Luz IV was commissioned in 2002 for a plaza that links Munich's Alte and Neue Pinakothek with the Pinakothek der Moderne.

Before he became an artist, Chillida was a professional soccer player. His nickname was "El Gato" (the cat), because of his quick reflexes while keeping goal for Real Sociedad, one of the Basque region's top clubs. A knee injury at the age of 19 forced him into early retirement, however.

As an artist Chillida had to navigate the politics of the Franco era. Along with several of his contemporaries, abstraction allowed him to create works that could be seen as subtly subversive while not falling foul of the dictatorship.

The sale beat the Chillida’s previous auction record by $3.02m, a 91% rise. His previous record was set by Rumor de limites VI - Limit noise VI (1960), which sold for $3.29m at Christie's on June 22, 2006. The work had not been traded before.

A Brief History of Chillida at Auction