FERREIRA
Fernando Ferreira was born in County Bollullos in 1925, to Joseph Carrasco and Matilde Carrasco Ferreira Ramos, the last of eight children: Joaquin Antonio, Manolo (my father), two little sisters who died at a very early age, Juan, Fernando and Joselito (father of Matilda, another great painter). At school, in 1937, instead to illustrating his school works with images from newspapers and magazzines, he presented them with his own drawings. His teacher, Enrique Sancho, told the sculptor Antonio Delgado about it, who in turn spoke about it to Lacárcel Felix, who at the time was in Bollullos restoring some paintings.
He was fifteen when Felix Lacárcel prepared him to enter in his study at the School of Fine Arts in Seville, which was reorganized in 1940. He trained himself copying sculptures of the Archaeological Museum and Becquer, in Maria Luisa's Park. On one occasion he was approached by Juan Lafita, and he asked jokingly if he was the famous flamenco singer "Gitanillo Triana" because of his dark skin and wavy hair. He loved his drawings.
In September 1941 he entered the School of Fine Arts, with Juan Antonio Rodriguez, Calvo Carrión, Moreno Galván, Juan Talavera, Maireles, Rosario Fernández, Loli Sánchez, José Trueba and others.
From 1946 to 1947 he did his military service in Ronda. He was assigned as a sub-lieutenant in Ferrol. There was an exhibition at the Ferrolano Cultural Center and the Association of Artists of La Coruña. In the study of Manuel Pérez Arévalo he painted many portraits, especially families of soldiers and sailors, such as the daughters of Captain Cardona.
He had friends who supported him unconditionally in the difficult task of breaking into the art market. I can not remember them all, but none like Romualdo León Mora (Mora Monís cousin) and her family. The portrait of his daughters, Isabelita and Mari, were very successful in the spring exhibition of the Ateneo of Sevilla in 1948. By 1954 he painted the ceiling of the chapel of San José, in the parish of Bollullos.
From January to May 1961, by order of Mr. Luis Espinosa, he made several paintings for the Palace of Rocinas. They were two ceilings of 12 x 6 m., The ballroom and the dining room, which depicted the appearance of the Virgen del Rocio and two religious murals in the chapel. As well as another glass with a deer in the window of the staircase leading up, made with the oil technique for transparencies, with burnt sienna. Topics such as those of Rubens, the Creation by Michelangelo, and the cornucopia. For Mr. Luis Espinosa, who had been hunting in Africa, he painted African wildlife.
He had customers in Sweden and Portugal. For Louis Lindgrem, an engineer in Fallum (Sweden), he painted with oil on paper technique, in the year 1961. Between 1973 and 1976 he sent some paintings to Portugal, for an art gallery in Valle del Lobo, Argentil. He worked tirelessly for the house Pueyo, Sevilla, which reached his full production.
It is impossible to remember his numerous works. Let's bring to mind at least, the main subjects emerging from his palette: still lifes, vases, landscapes, portraits and genre pictures, such as El Rocío pilgrimage, sevillanas dances, parties, flamenco, gypsies, etc. He has not been fond of the religious themes, but he made some very successful attempts to create spaces and new perspectives of the Gospel, such as Ecce Homo scenes in the palace, Entombment of Christ, and the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, after experiencing a path that did not followed. He was commissioned to copy the Immaculate and other works of Murillo, without losing the personality of his brushwork. With great success he made "portraits" of images as venerated as the Virgin of El Rocío, the Virgin of Mercedes, the Macarena, the Esperanza de Triana and the Great Power also known as 'El Cachorro'. He also made portraits of people with great mastery, giving freshness and vitality to their models, with striking resemblance.
His art is not pretentious, not in form or content. It's like a guitar music which does not need lyrics. His art is the discovery and transmission of pure, beautiful and simple truth, elevated by good taste, depicted with great sensitivity, unconcerned about schools and intellectual trends. The most notable trait of his personal style is the drawing, very safe, very solid, although wrapped it in mist and blurs. His figures, with even minute brushstrokes that are no more than insinuations, are perfectly delineated and located in space. And although it may seem contradictory, he continually blurs them with loose brushstrokes to create a flowing, impressionistic atmosphere. I think, however, that he sinks his artistics roots in Murillo and the Goya of the late nineteenth. His art-work is very colorful: he moves comfortably in a sober and reduced color palette in which white, sienna and ocher predominate. The topics of El Rocío pilgrimage entailed for him an important advance to customize his style, as they refreshed his palette and gave his painting some movement.
Although he did not frequent artistic circles, he has to his credit more than a few shows. In the town of Bollullos he presented several exhibitions, since his first in the Farmers Association in 1948, to his most recent: his still lifes of grapes and fruits, in , September 1994, or the anthology of 2002. In La Palma, in the San Fernando exhibition halls. In Huelva and Gibraleón in 1964, with Enrique Mora Monís. In Cáceres, with two exhibitions, at the College of Physicians. In Sevilla, with several exhibitions in the Spring Mudejar Pavilion, competing for the Murillo Award (1948) at the Ateneo Cultural Center (1963), in the Occidental Bank halls (1982-1983), and in the Mercantil Circle Center. In Malaga (1973), in Madrid (1974-1975).