1925-2020

Born into a Galician family of intellectuals, Antonio Bonet Correa studied at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Santiago de Compostela and then at the Sorbonne. He returned to Spain in 1958 and later held chairs in the universities of Murcia and Seville and in Madrid’s Complutense, posts from which he devoted himself to teaching and research with a mastery that made him one of the country’s leading art historians. Bonet investigated themes such as Baroque feasts, Latin American art, and architectural treatises. He was also a bridge between disciplines, encouraging alliances among painting, architecture, and urban space; between geographies, promoting encounters of France, Spain, and Latin America; and between generations, acting as a nexus among masters like Diego Angulo, Ramón Carande, Antonio Blanco, and younger ones who became leading scholars, such as Francisco Calvo Serraller, Juan Antonio Ramírez, and Estrella de Diego. Bonet Correa presided the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts and sat in the Prado Museum’s Board of Trustees.