Jose Luis Perez Ortega (1949) Design for ARTESPAÑA 2003. Manufacturer ArtesMoble. Pair of "Frailero Armchair" chairs with stainless steel frame and violin scroll armrests in carved, burgundy-stained wood. Bone-colored leather upholstery. Dimensions 78 x 54 x 53 cm "In 1987, the national crafts company Artespaña created the AZIMUT collection with the aim of incorporating design into the company's artisan spirit, asking renowned architects and designers of the day such as Rafael Moneo, Oscar Tusquets, Pedro Miralles and José Luis Pérez Ortega, among others, to design a piece of furniture for the company's new image. José Luis Pérez Ortega graduated in industrial design from Milan's Scuola Politecnica di Design, with Bruno Munari and Attilio Marcolli as his teachers. He collaborated with architect Gianfranco Frattini in his Milan studio and, back in Spain, founded the "Escuela de Diseño Experimental" in Madrid with architect Miguel Durán-Lóriga and other teachers. When Artespaña proposed to design a product with the company's spirit and philosophy. After a rigorous study of historic Spanish furniture, he presented a design for the "New Friar Armchair". "Once upon a time there was a country called Spain, where there were kings who sat on austere armchairs above which was a great empire, seas and trade. Similar in volume to the historic 16th-century convent armchair, José Luis Pérez Ortega's "New Frailero Armchair" is of great formal simplicity and linear character, with a stainless steel frame, leather upholstery and wooden armrests. Spanish walnut hand-carved in the shape of a violin neck scroll, provoking a tactile connection with the user, and evoking its historical past. Present at Barcelona's Design Museum since 1994, the original piece created by ArtesMoble was incorporated into the permanent collection of Madrid's National Museum of Decorative Arts in 2020 to become part of Spanish design history. We are grateful for ArtesMoble's help in cataloguing the piece.