Jose Ortiz-Echagüe in his home laboratory
1960
Jose Ortiz Echague in the 1960s adjusting his camera in front of some ruins in Avila, Spain
entrepreneur industrial military engineer Photographer pilot
Jose Ortiz Echague was born on August 2, 1886, in Guadalajara, Castilla-La Mancha, Spain. He was the second 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.
In the beginning, Jose Ortiz Echague 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 Jose Ortiz Echague joined the Academy of Military engineers in Guadalajara. Thereupon his training and graduation, he served in the Balloon unit during the Spanish-Moroccan War in North Africa. He acquired his aerostat and aircraft pilot license in 1911, being the third Spanish man awarded to it.
Jose Echagiie became a balloon pilot in the early 1900s and in 1910 was commissioned as an airplane pilot. He founded and was president of CASA, an aeronautical factory, and SEAT, a car-manufacturing company. His first photographs were published in Photograms of the Year, and in 1915 he started doing photography on a professional basis. His work was widely exhibited in Europe and the United States.
His international reputation began in 1907 when his work appeared in Photograms of the Year, edited by Mortimer in London. For thirty years Jose Echagiie was the only Spaniard to be represented in this annual. He employed the exclusive Fresson process, manufacturing his own paper, which he called Carbondir (carbon direct), after 1965. Also, from 1909 to 1915, he specialized in aerial photography.
Quotes from others about the person
According to Luis Nadeau: "The superb beauty of his prints, combined with his poignant subject matter, made his work accepted in hundreds of exhibits and magazines."
In 1916 Jose Ortiz Echague married his wife Carmen Rubio in Madrid. The marriage resulted in eight children.
Antonio Ortiz was a professor at the Academy of Military Engineers in Guadalajara. Three years later, Antonio Ortiz was appointed chief of the military garrison in Logroño, the capital of La Rioja, the family moved to Logroño, where Jose Ortiz-Echagüe grew up and went to school.
Antonio Ortiz Echague 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.
