TELEPHONE:
ADDRESS:
Calle Ramón y Cajal, 1, 50660 Tauste (Zaragoza)
ACTIVITY
On completing his education, Tomás Duaso purchased all the machinery, tools and wood from a small workshop owned by Mr Joaquín, who was retiring, and took it all to his hometown (Tauste) in order to set up a self-employed project of his own. He has… his workshop there in his grandparents’ magical old adobe and wood barn.
He does two lines of work: on one hand, joinery and cabinetmaking, including the design and manufacture of solid wood furniture with traditional jointing. The other is as a restorer, working with art restoration firms to dismantle and assemble altarpieces, choir stalls, sacristy chests, load-bearing structures, large-format frames and carvings, etc.
He masters various woodworking techniques as well as structural timber building and jointing, such as with mortise and tenon joints. For a craft show he made an octagonal Mudéjar collar-beam roof.
He has exhibited furniture twice at the Aragón annual craft fair, and in 2017 he won first prize in the crafts competition. He has also been awarded a regional craftsperson’s certificate.
TRAINING
Tomás took vocational training in woodwork (specialising in furniture design and manufacture) at the Salesian Vocational Training Centre in Pamplona and the Vicente Ferrer Institute in Valencia. He was awarded a Leonardo Da Vinci Grant for a cabinetry placement in a workshop in Turin (Italy).
His… went on learning with the experience of working in a carpentry workshop in Valencia and then in a joinery shop in Zaragoza. At these small workshops Tomás liked to work alongside elder artisans, from whom he learnt the most: templates, techniques, tricks of the trade, etc.
Lately he has acquired more knowledge in courses on various fields of woodwork at the León Crafts Centre and the Homo Faber Centre in Mansilla de las Mulas (León province), with training in making winder steps, roof structures, beam and panel ceilings, wood bending, Mudéjar strapwork for furniture, drawing in Autocad applied to furniture, etc.
His curiosity also prompts him often to visit cathedrals, chapels, churches and other such buildings where he always learns from features such as vaulting, altarpiece structures, concealed staircases, etc. He has analysed and studied altarpieces and choir stalls in the Cathedrals of Ciudad Rodrigo, Plasencia and Tudela and elsewhere.
TEACHING
– Carpentry instruction at a socio-occupational centre for youngsters with employability issues within the Cáritas Social Safeguards Programme in Villareal (Castellón province), 1998-99
– Teaching carpentry and joinery at the Zaragoza Provincial Council’s Damián Forment Trade School, 2000-02
– Teaching carpentry and joinery at the Zaragoza Provincial… Council’s Bartolomé Bermejo Trade School, 2002-04
SELECTED WORK
Carpentry and joinery in major restorations:
Choir stalls of the Cathedral of Ciudad Rodrigo (Salamanca province)
Choir stalls of the Cathedral of Plasencia (Cáceres province)
Choir stalls of the Monastery of Yuste (Cáceres province)
Choir stalls of the Cathedral of Albarracín (Teruel province)
Choir stalls of the Church of Santa… María in Trujillo (Cáceres province)
Choir stalls of the Church of La Magdalena in Zaragoza
Ornamental wooden ceiling in the Monta Tanto hall in the Cathedral of Huesca
Screen and choir stalls of the Monastery of Fitero (Navarre)
Front doors of the Basilica of San Francisco el Grande in Madrid
Altarpieces of the church of Cabra del Santo Cristo in Jaén
Chests for the Cathedral of Murcia
Large-format frame for the Prado Museum in Madrid
Manufacture of large-format frames for the wings of the altarpiece of Saint Paul in Zaragoza
