School of Artisans

The Gelves Artisan Training School, also known as the “Della Robbia” School, owes its name to a famous Italian sculptor and ceramist from the 15th century.  It was founded in 1993 with the aim of recovering craft trades and offering quality training, thanks to an agreement between the Town Council of Gelves, which provided the project and the land for its construction, and the Regional Government of Andalusia, which financed its construction. It later joined the Andalusian Employment Service (November 2015) as one of the entities that make up the network of training schools for employment, and is also an Associate Centre of the National Reference Centre for Crafts of the SEPE belonging to the Ministry of Labour and Social Economy. With almost 30 years of experience in training aimed at the professional crafts sector, its work is also a benchmark in the research and preservation of Andalusian artistic and monumental heritage.

This school of national and international renown is a Vocational Training Centre for Employment whose main objective is to provide courses of the highest quality, thereby contributing to the employability of its students. It has two buildings specifically equipped for teaching Ceramics, Wood and Woodworking techniques. In both of them there is a permanent exhibition of works made by the students, some of them awarded in museums and institutions of international prestige. Since its beginnings in 1993, ceramics (in its three expressions of pottery, modelling and painting) has been its main activity, although it has also incorporated the conservation of other crafts such as woodworking and others related to sacred art. Among them, wood carving, for whose activity it has a second headquarters located in the Industrial and Services Park “Guadalquivir”. Its main headquarters is a building whose physiognomy and structure are reminiscent of an old Andalusian farmhouse, with a central courtyard surrounded by classrooms and workshops, capable of hosting numerous exhibitions, as well as cultural activities of various kinds. The prestige that the Escuela de Formación de Artesanos de Gelves has acquired in its long experience is not only due to the important training work it carries out in Gelves, but also to its participation in cultural events and craft demonstrations in Spain and in other countries of the European Union and the world. Among the artistic dissemination activities carried out for cultural exchange with centres in other countries and communities, we can highlight the participation in exhibitions of Ceramics and Luthery at the Musseum Expressions in Paris, the Artisan’s Fair in Milan, the Angers Fair in France, the Andalusian Products Exhibitions held in Japan and the United States, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, the Archaeology Museum and the Casino de la Exposición in Seville, among others.

The Gelves School of Artisan Training has won important national and international prizes, as well as receiving commissions for the replacement of pieces from both the Andalusian Legacy and the Universal Exhibitions of Seville in 1929 and 1992.