Curator Biography:

Alvaro Soler del Campo
Exhibition Curator, The Art of Power: Royal Armor and Portraits from Imperial Spain
Director, Spanish Royal Armory, Madrid
Chief Curator, Patrimonio Nacional

Alvaro Soler del Campo is director of the Royal Armory in Madrid. He received a Ph.D. from Madrid Complutense University in medieval history in 1992 with the published dissertation titled The Evolution of Medieval Weaponry: Castile and al-Andalus from the 12th to the 14th Century. He directed the renovation project of the Royal Armory of Madrid from 2000 to 2004.

Major exhibitions organized by Soler include Treasures of Fire: Madrid Gumakers from the 18th Century (Royal Palace, Madrid, 2007), and Art and Chivalry in Spain: The Royal Armory of Madrid (Palace Museum, Forbidden City, Beijing, 2008).

Soler is the author of more the thirty essays and numerous publications on the history of arms and armor, such as La evolución del armamento medieval en el Reino Castellano-Leonés y Al-Andalus (siglos XII-XIV) (1992), and the Catálogo De Arcabucería Madrileña (1687-1833): Real Armería De Madrid (2006).

Soler is co-editor of Gladius, a magazine of the Spanish National Research Council, the largest public research body in Spain within the Ministry of Education. He received the Research Award of the Ministry of the Defense of Spain in 1992 and the Research Medal of the Arms and Armor Society, Tower of London, in 2009. He has also been awarded with the Spanish Order del Merito Civil.