Gonzalo Chillida was born in San Sebastián on January 12th, 1926. Interested in painting since his childhood, he enrolled in the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid and attended drawing classes at the Círculo de Bellas Artes. In 1951 he travelled to Paris to study, residing in the French capital until 1953. During these first years his work was influenced by realism, geometric forms, cubism and metaphysical painting.

It was during 1950s and the early 1960s he began to develop a personal pictorial style that evolved toward abstraction, departing from a realistic motif such as the sea or the beaches in front of his house in San Sebastian, the landscape of the Basque mountains, or the views of the Castilian meseta. Between these years and his death in 2008, his painting progressed towards blurred forms, more essential and free compositions achieved through applications of oil colors on canvas in subtle brushstrokes.

His work, shown nationally and internationally over the years in individual as well as group exhibitions. In 2001 he was awarded with Spain´s Gold Medal for the Fine Arts.