19th-20th Century Spanish

José Echenagusía, better known in the art world as José Echena, was born on 1 January 1844 in a well-off family in Fuenterrabía. In 1858 he enrolled at the Real Seminario de Vergara and then in 1863 he moved to Bilbao to take classes in drawing and painting.

In 1872, after the outbreak of the Third Carlist War, Echena went to France to further his training. There he gained first-hand knowledge of the work of the painter Mariano Fortuny (1838-1874), who had been based in Paris since 1870. In 1874, his evident talent in painting led his aunt, María Echenagusia, to fund further studies in Bayonne. In 1875, after the sudden death of his benefactor, he used the inheritance he received from her to travel to Italy.

In 1876 he settled in Rome, where he would remain for the rest of his life. The artist set up his own studio and became acquainted with Spanish artists living in the city, like José Villegas Cordero (1844-1921), responsible for abbreviating Echenagusía to Echena, the nickname under which he became better-known. Largely owing to the influence of Fortuny, he began to specialise in history, religious, orientalist and genre painting, always executed in an academic and précieux style in tune with the prevailing tastes of high society and the demands of the international art world of the time.

His intensive exhibition activity in Rome did not preclude Echena’s presence in the Spanish art scene. On two occasions he took part in the in Madrid: in 1884, winning a second class medal with The Arrival at Calvary, and in 1887, when he did not obtain any prize, after which he stopped attending the event. However, he continued submitting works to shows and competitions organised in the Basque Country, with which he always maintained close contact, assiduously visiting Biscay and Guipúzcoa, where he worked on the decoration of several buildings, including the Palacio de la Diputación Foral de Vizcaya or the Palacio Chávarri, both in Bilbao.

Echena died in Rome on 31 January 1912 of a fever he never recovered from. An exhibition in his honour was organised on 26 August later that year at the Municipal Museum of San Sebastian, a city in which he was held in high esteem.