Vitralls Bonet today
Vitralls Bonet was founded by JM Bonet in 1923 and since then it has transmitted from generation to generation and from master to master a spirit that contemplates a scrupulous respect for traditional techniques and methods, as well as a constant interest in the development of new procedures.
Currently the workshop has adapted to market requirements by working with a tight and highly specialized staff capable of facing any situation related to conservation, restoration or the creation of stained glass windows
Methodology
The company works in accordance with the guidelines proposed by the international organization Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi of 2004, investigating and documenting: the initial state, the process of restoration, the materials used and the final state of the work, delivering all the documentation generated to the person in charge of the project.
A multidisciplinary team
Our team is made up of: two creatives: a graduate in Fine Arts and another with a diploma in Arts applied to walls, a graduate in Chemistry specializing in the conservation and restoration of stained glass windows, as well as assemblers, engravers, and installers, all trained in the company and with extensive experience in the field of stained glass.
Our workshop
A history of a hundred years
Josep Maria Bonet (1903 Seo de Urgel -1988 Barcelona) founded the workshop together with his brother Xavier Bonet (1897-1985). The family has ancient roots in the town of Arsèguel in Alto Urgel. At a very young age, he studied in Barcelona at the La Llotja school, where he excelled in drawing and befriended artists with whom he would later collaborate in the field of stained glass, Montsardà, Labarta, Commeleran.
Later he learned the trade in the glassmaker Oriach’s workshop, where his brother already worked.
The difficult years
His first works were in the hands of the artist Darius Vilàs and the architect Josep Maria Pericas, some stained glass windows of the parish churches of Carmen de Barcelona and San Juan de Reus, as well as the stained glass windows of the crypt of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. The workshop, which worked on making leaded windows, on their restoration and on engraved glass, was collectivized during the civil war and both JM Bonet and Xavier Bonet devoted themselves to other professional activities.
Post-war and new jobs
At the end of the war, the workshop resumed its activity and worked on the stained glass windows of the chapter hall of the Poblet monastery, on the stained glass windows of the Vallbona de las Monjas and Santes Creus monasteries, on the stained glass windows of Santa María de las Avellanas, in the parish of San Juan de Lleida, in those of the Cathedral of Sant Feliu de Llobregat, according to drawings by Francesc Labarta and in the parishes of Jesus and Saint John of Grace. He also worked with the architect Josep Maria Jujol in the parishes of Santa María de Vilanova y la Geltrú and in those of Sant Joan Despí.
Beyond carrying out a great work in Catalan stained glass, he concentrated on the improvement of materials, of processes and worked for the introduction of Tiffany-style copper lamps and with reserves with adhesive vinyl that made it possible to avoid the laborious use of tin foil and bitumen from Judea.
New times
Around the 1960s, a new era began in which stained glass was again an artistic field with its own discourse and JM Bonet worked with the artists Will Faber on the windows of the transept of the church of Hogares Mundet, with Ramon Rogent in the stained glass windows of the chapel of the Granollers Hospital, the parish church of Rubí, in the stained glass windows of Domènech Fita for the Cathedral of Girona, with Carlos Madiroles for the Carmelites of Vic.
Josep Maria Bonet received the master glazier craftsman charter in 1986. He died in Barcelona in 1988 working until almost his last day in the stained glass workshop.
