José Ortega studied from 1899 at the Beaux-Arts Academie in Algiers, where he is a pupil of Hippolyte Dubois.
In 1905, he became Antoine Rochegrosse's engraver at the Académie Antoine Druet (the first painting academy founded in Algeria in 1904). His masters opened the doors of the National School of Fine Arts in
Paris where he followed the academic teaching of Gabriel Ferrier. On his return to Algiers, he exhibited at the Salon of Algerian Orientalist Artists, in particular very colorful landscapes and representations of the red villages of the El Kantara region.
El Kantara is a municipality of the wilaya of Biskra in Algeria. It is an oasis in the south-west of the Aurès whose natural site and Roman heritage have been classified and protected since 1923. El Kantara has a great wealth of heritage, including Dachra Dhahraouia and its Casbah, the Roman remains and the museum Lapidaire or still the European city. Part of its history is immortalized in texts and works of painters like here.