Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau

Ferrer Dalmau painting Rocroi, el último tercio (English: Rocroi, the last tercio).

Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau Nieto was born in Barcelona in a family of the Catalan bourgeoisie linked to Carlism (he is the great-nephew of the Carlist journalist and historian Melchor Ferrer Dalmau).[1] He studied at the Jesuit college of San Ignacio in Sarriá.[2] At the end of the 1980s he worked as a textile designer for different firms, always maintaining his passion for oil painting.[3] His vocation for military and history also led him to paint this subject from a very young age and write a book (Batallón Román), although his first independent and self-taught works were landscapes, especially seascapes.[4]

Later, inspired by the work of Antonio López García, he focused on urban environments and captured in his canvases the spots of his native Barcelona.[5] He exhibited in art galleries, and garnered hits and good reviews. The work of this time is collected in a monograph of the author and in several general books of contemporary art.[6][7][8] At the end of the 1990s he decided to specialize in the historical-military theme and began to produce canvases where the landscape is mixed with military elements such as soldiers and cavalry.[9]

Carga del río Igan por el Regimiento Alcántara (2013).

Installed in Madrid since 2010, he has collaborated with different publishers, associations,[10] institutions,[11][12] and specialized entities in the recreation of the military history of Spain.[13] Different monographic books on his painting have been published. A man committed to culture and art, he founded his own magazine, FD (Ferrer-Dalmau) Magazine,[14] in which he approaches the history of Spain and its people from an artistic and social perspective. His work and diffusion is managed by the company Historical Outline,[15] and his paintings illustrate numerous books, covers,[16] and magazines, especially of history.

Ferrer-Dalmau has been in the zone of operations of an international conflict like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Mali and Lebanon, making sketches, taking notes and painting, while living with the Spanish ISAF troops in 2012 and in 2014 in the province of Helmand with the Georgian Armed Forces.[17] The painter shared experiences with the ASPFOR XXXI contingent, trained at the base of the Parachute Brigade, at Qala i Naw and at the Ricketts Combat Outpost (COP) in Moqur. It is the first time that a Spanish painter goes to a mission abroad to collaborate with the Ministry of Defense of Spain. However, it is not an exceptional practice because other armies have war artists, such as the US Marine Corps, which currently has three official artists, one of them Michael D. Fay, president of The International Society of War Artists,[18] of which Ferrer-Dalmau is a member. The painter made his work The patrol (La Patrulla)'[19] as homage to the Spanish soldiers.[20][21] In May 2016 he was painting the Spanish troops in the mission of Lebanon.,[22] in April 2018 with the Spanish Army in the European Union Training Mission in Mali (EUTM-Mali),[23] in September 2018 in Aleppo (Syria) with the Army of the Russian Federation [24] and in November 2019 he was painting the Spanish troops in Iraq.[25]

In addition to private collections, his work can be seen in different museums, such as the Museum of the Royal Guard (Royal Palace of El Pardo, Madrid), the Army Museum, the Museum of the General Military Academy (Zaragoza),[26] the Naval Museum of Madrid, the Museum of Intendance (Avila), the Naval Military Academy of Marín (Pontevedra), and the Museum of Modern Art of the Republic of Georgia, can also be seen in the Royal Palace of Valladolid.

Throughout his professional career he has held individual exhibitions in private galleries in Barcelona, Madrid, London, Paris and New York[27] and institutional centers such as:

Sketches made by the artist in Afghanistan in August 2012.