Ulpiano Checa

Ulpiano Checa (April 3, 1860 – January 5, 1916) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, poster designer and illustrator, known in the art world as Ulpiano Fernández-Checa y Saiz. He used both impressionistic and academic techniques, and painted mainly historical subjects.

He was born in Colmenar de Oreja, Spain, and exhibited a talent for art when he was a young child. At thirteen, he met Don Jose Ballester, the husband of a neighbor in Colmenar who owned the Cafe de la Concepción in Madrid. This event changed the course of his life. After consultation with Luis Taveras, a recognized artist in Madrid, Ballester decided to bring Ulpiano to the capital with his family to begin his art studies.

In 1873, he entered the Escuela de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid, followed by the Spanish Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, where he would paint Invasion of the Barbarians (since lost in a fire) which won the gold medal National Exhibition of Fine Arts in 1887.

During his formative years, Checa was directed by Alejandro Ferrant, Federico de Madrazo, Manuel Dominguez, and Paul Gonsalves. He was an outstanding student, which led him to get two grants for painting, and a position as assistant professor in the subject of perspective. The course of 1880-1881, he left school to begin work as an artist. He worked as assistant to Manuel Dominguez in the decoration of the Palace of Linares and the Basilica San Francisco el Grande, the two most important decorative projects in Madrid during the last decades of the century.

To mark the bicentenary of the death of Calderón de la Barca, he made his first contribution, an illustration, to the magazine. Interested in artistic evolution, he moved within the cultural circles of Madrid, and served as a founding member of the Círculo de Bellas Artes of Madrid.

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