José Antonio de Artigas Sanz

José Antonio de Artigas Sanz was a Spanish engineer who focused on Electrotechnical Standardization.

Born in Spain in 1887, earned a doctorate in engineering in 1907, becoming also a member of the Royal Spanish Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences. Even before finishing University, he applied noble gases to luminescence for the first time and set up an electric lighting system that multiplied incandescence performance. When the Spanish Permanent Commission for Electricity was set up in 1912 to represent Spain at the IEC, De Artigas was appointed President, of the Spanish Electrotechnical Committee, a post he held until the end of his life. As a Professor of the Higher Institute of Technology for Industrial Engineering, and later Honorary Director of the Institute, De Artigas held the Chair of Statistics. He was also Counsellor to the Ministry of Education, the Council of Scientific Research and the International Institute of Statistics. Appointed Director of the Institute of Industrial Studies and Research, an institute that now bears his name, De Artigas was President of the Council of Industry, President of the Institute of Civil Engineers, First President of the Technical Section of the Permanent Commission of Weights and Measures, and Honorary Director of the Spanish National Institute of Medicine and Industrial Safety. His wide range of responsibilities included his functions as Counsellor of the National Economic Council, President of the National Federation of the National Council of Fuel and Chemical Companies, VicePresident of the Spanish National Optical Company and Director of the Research Centre of the International Glass Commission. In parallel with his activities at the national level, De Artigas was an Honorary Member of the Statistical Society, of the Society of Gas Technology, of the German Association for Glass Technology, and a Fellow of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers.In Spain he chaired the Optics Institute, and in various international organizations he secured unanimous consent from all countries to give the universal unit of light a Spanish name: candela. He helped found the Spanish industry of precision glass and in North America, together with a colleague, succeeded in melting a twenty-three ton glass block completely free of internal waste for the Mount Palomar telescope. De Artigas’ participation in the work of the IEC began in 1913 when he attended the Council meeting in Berlin as President of the Spanish Electrotechnical Committee. At this period, an IEC Technical Committee had already started work on nomenclature, and De Artigas made an important contribution to the preparation of the first edition of the International Electrotechnical Vocabulary, which contained 2 000 terms divided into 14 groups, and was completed in 1938. In 1952, the Spanish Committee, under his direction, prepared the Spanish part of the International Electrotechnical Vocabulary, and also a special version intended for institutes of higher learning in Latin America, containing definitions in Spanish and the translation of terms into French, English, German and Italian. He was appointed Honorary President of the IEC at the Council meeting held in Madrid in 1959. Holder of the Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic and of Charles III, Gentleman in Waiting to His Majesty King Alfonso XIII, he was also a Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Paris. De Artigas is remembered as a brilliant personality of great culture and as a very capable leader whose achievements bear witness to the impetus he was able to give to international standardization throughout his career.