Elías Tormo y Monzó
(Albaida, Valencia, 1869 - Madrid, 1957)

Elías Tormo y Monzó was a humanist and a political activist. He left his imprint in the fields of education and the emerging history of art, a discipline of which he was its first Professor. He studied Law and Arts in Valencia and obtained PhDs in both subjects at the University of Madrid (1890). He was Professor of Natural Law in the University of Santiago (1897), and of Theory of Literature and Arts (soon to be called History of Art) in Salamanca (1902), Granada (1903), and Madrid (1904).

In politics, he was a member of Maura’s Conservative Party and was elected congressman for Albaida (1903), senator of the Kingdom (1901-1923), and member of the National Assembly (1927-1929).
He was successively dean, vice rector and rector of the Universidad Central, and General Berenguer appointed him Minister of Public Education (1930-1931).Tormo named Manuel Gómez-Moreno, his colleague and friend of the Center for Historical Studies (CEH), Director of Fine Arts. Their proposals for educational reforms and an effective control of the artistic heritage had a limited scope because the government did not last long.

He was also elected member of the Royal Academy of History and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, board member of the Prado Museum, and the Valencia de Don Juan Museum. He was doctor honoris causa from the universities of Tübingen, and Bonn.

He maintained close links with the Junta para Ampliación de Estudios (JAE) and its Centro de Estudios Históricos (CEH). He wrote for the CEH periodical Cultura Española (1906) and obtained a grant from the JAE in 1911 to visit European museums. In 1912 he was put in charge of reorganizing the Prado Museum and that grant was directly linked to this project. On 15 January 1913, the CEH established the Art Section, with Tormo as its director.  The Archaeology Section was headed by Gómez-Moreno since 1910.

Both sections had a solid base and clearly defined responsibilities but worked closely together. Their combined effort produced the Archivo Español de Arte y Arqueología, a periodical founded and co-directed by Tormo and Gómez-Moreno in 1925 that became the reference publication for both disciplines.

Tormo’s department had outstanding students, such as Sánchez Cantón, Angulo, Allendesalazar, Lozoya, and Lafuente Ferrari. They focused on drawing up a file of artists, continuing the work begun by Cean Bermudez, complemented with their artwork. The department also provided scholars with unpublished documents from various archives, and started several projects of cataloguing, and published historical, artistic and iconographic studies.

Tormo fostered direct contact with the artwork in the classroom and in research, organized field trips and academic networks, and taught his classes in museums. His publications, such as Jacomart y el arte hispano-flamenco cuatrocentista (1913), Cartillas excursionistas (Guadalajara, 1919; Alcalá de Henares, 1919; Ávila, 1919; Segovia, 1920; Aranjuez, 1929), Guías artísticas de España (Levante, 1923; Iglesias del antiguo Madrid, 1927; Monumentos de españoles en Roma, 1940), and Datos documentales para la historia del arte español (1914-1916) are examples of his approach to art history.

The Civil War forced him into retirement, and he went to the Escuela Española de Roma.  Then, despite being away from leading positions, he was invited, like Gomez-Moreno, to join the newly created Instituto Diego Velázquez del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), run by his disciples who followed his legacy. The CSIC had named him member of the Patronato Menéndez Pelayo (1941-1945) and honorary adviser (1946-1957). Tormo worked in the institute as consultant and head of the Section of Medieval and Modern Sculpture until his death in 1957.