Between 1947 and 1948, he studied Architecture at the Catholic University of Chile, studies which he abandoned after deciding to dedicate himself entirely to painting. From 1949 to 1952, he studied painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, and casting at the School of Fine Arts of the University of Chile, where he was a student of Pablo Burchard. Between 1953 and 1955, he studied enamel on metal, lithography, and ceramics at the School of Applied Arts of the University of Chile, where he earned a degree in Crafts with a specialization in Enamel on Metals. From 1956 to 1959, he studied sculpture and casting at the School of Fine Arts of the University of Chile. In 1959, he received a scholarship from the University of Chile to study goldsmithing at the Porta Romana School in Florence, Italy.
From 1952 to 1956, he served as an assistant in the Visual Arts Teachers’ Course at the School of Fine Arts of the University of Chile, and as assistant to Carlos Pedraza in Pedagogy in Painting. Between 1956 and 1959, he was assistant in the Enamel Department of José Perotti at the School of Applied Arts of the University of Chile. From 1962 to 1966, he studied sculpture and enamel on metal at the same school. In 1966, he received a Fulbright Scholarship to study artistic casting at the Rhode Island School of Design in New York, United States. During this period, he learned the technique of sand-casting aluminum (“a la tierra”), a method he definitively adopted for his creations and later perfected in Chile.
In 1978, he obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a specialization in Sculpture from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Chile in Santiago. From that same year until 1987, he was a Professor of Sculpture at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Chile. Egenau never settled abroad again; he devoted himself fully to his vocation as a sculptor and teacher. His work continued to evolve into new creative stages, and he participated in and received recognition at important sculptural events and projects until shortly before his early death. Most of his works are located abroad, but significant pieces can be found in public and private collections in Chile.
