ArtistSpanish
Puig Doria
3 active items
Born in Barcelona in 1926, Josep Maria Puig Doria grew up in a household shaped by architecture. His father, Isidre Puig Boada, was one of the architects who collaborated with Antoni Gaudi on the Sagrada Familia, and that inherited sensibility for structure, ornament, and material experimentation would run through every piece Puig Doria later created. After studying design and silversmithing - drawing on the Catalan tradition of applied arts education - he opened his first jewelry workshop on Carrer de Provenca in Barcelona in 1948, at a time when the Spanish jewelry trade was still largely conservative and gold-dominated.
The workshop quickly distinguished itself. Puig Doria built a reputation for pieces that drew from architectural geometry rather than conventional floral or figurative traditions. Brooches, bracelets, and rings took on structural logic, surfaces were treated as planes and volumes rather than decorative fields. By the late 1960s he made a decisive move that would define his legacy: in 1969 he launched what became known as the silver line, deliberately promoting sterling silver as a material of genuine prestige at a moment when it was widely regarded as secondary to gold. The timing proved astute, catching a broader international turn toward modernist design in jewelry.
Alongside silver, Puig Doria began incorporating materials that had no precedent in Spanish fine jewelry: coconut shell, titanium, ebony, and eggshell, the last of which he used to interpret the mosaic language of Gaudi's trencadis work. The effect was a kind of wearable architecture - tactile, formally rigorous, and distinctly Catalan in its cultural references. The firm took the work internationally, participating in exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Osaka, and Nagoya, where it gained recognition well beyond Spain.
The accolades followed the exposure. Puig Doria was the first Spanish jeweler to win the International Diamond Award, and the brand also received the International Pearl Design Contest prize from Tokyo. In 2002, the Generalitat de Catalunya awarded him the Creu de Sant Jordi, the highest civil distinction in Catalonia, in recognition of his contribution to Catalan design culture. He died in 2006, having run the house for nearly six decades.
On the secondary market, Puig Doria pieces circulate internationally through specialist dealers on platforms such as 1stDibs and through auction houses. Prices typically range from a few hundred to a few thousand euros for individual pieces. Within the Auctionist database, 16 items have been tracked, sourced primarily from Arce Auctions and Balclis in Spain. The categories span brooches, rings, earrings, and bracelets, consistent with the breadth of the original production. Recorded sales include a silver letter opener and a cubist-form silver and gold bracelet, with prices reaching approximately 1,600 SEK. The work appears primarily at Spanish auction houses, where knowledge of the brand and demand among collectors of Catalan modernist design remains concentrated.