José Ortiz Echagüe
| José Ortiz-Echagüe | |
|---|---|
José Ortiz-Echagüe in his home laboratory
|
|
| Born |
José Ortiz-Echagüe Puertas August 2, 1886 Guadalajara, Spain |
| Died | September 7, 1980 (aged 94) Madrid, Spain |
| Nationality | Spanish |
| Known for | Photography |
| Movement | Pictorialism |
| Spouse(s) | Carmen Rubio |
José Ortiz-Echagüe (August 2, 1886 in Guadalajara – September 7, 1980 in Madrid) was a Spanish entrepreneur, industrial and military engineer, pilot and photographer, founder of Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA (CASA) and Honorary lifetime President of SEAT (Sociedad Española de Automóviles de Turismo). He was also nominated Gentilhombre de cámara con ejercicio (Gentleman of the Bedchamber) during the reign of the King of Spain Alfonso XIII.
José Ortiz-Echagüe was the third child of the military engineer Antonio Ortiz and his wife Dolores Echagüe. The couple had two daughters and five sons, one of whom died young as a military aspirant. At his birth, José's father was a professor at the Academy of Military Engineers in Guadalajara. When the father, three years later, was appointed chief of the military garrison in Logroño, the capital of La Rioja, the family moved to Logroño, where José grew up and went to school. He used to consider himself a 'riojano'.
His three-year older brother, Antonio Ortiz-Echagüe, wanted to be a painter, even though in the family of the father and the mother there had been no known artists but several militaries. Antonio was therefore sent to Paris, and over the years he became an internationally known portrait painter of the early twentieth century. His work is found in an entire dedicated room in the Museo San Telmo in San Sebastián, where their parents lived after the retirement of their father.
In the beginning José Ortiz-Echagüe had aimed for himself to turn to painting too. He discovered the art of photography at the age of 12, when he received as a present his first photographic camera from an uncle who was military attaché in Paris: it was a Kodak camera with which he took his first photographs and began to develop his artistic talent. In 1903, he made a photo in La Rioja during the sermon in a village church ('Sermon en la aldea'), for which he received the first prize in the following year at an exhibition in Vitoria. Already in 1904, the Spanish photo magazine 'Graphos Ilustrado' published a report on his photos.
...
Wikipedia