GALLEGO, FERNANDO. - Spanish painter, b. c. 1440. Although his name indicates that he was originally from Galicia, tradition has it that he was born in Salamanca, where most of his activity appears to have taken place. Three signed works by him survive: the retablo of the chapel of S. Ildefonso in Zamora Cathedral, completed no later than 1457; the triptych of the new cathedral of Salamanca; and the Pietà with Two Donors, in the Webel collection in Madrid, which is one of his noblest creations.
All these paintings show him to have been one of the foremost representatives of that Hispano-Flemish school which had an active centre in Salamanca, influenced above all by Petrus Christus and Roger van der Weyden. Many other works are attributed to him, among them several grand ensembles (the retablo of Ciudad Rodrigo, now in the Cook collection; the retablo of S. Lorenzo en Toro; the dismembered retablo of the town of Aremillas, etc.). The FRANCESCO G. who is identified by documents as the author of the triptych of S. Caterina in the old cathedral of Salamanca, completed in 1500, is considered by some critics to have been Fernando’s son, though stylistically he does not differ from him. The last notice of the artist dates from 1507, when he was completing the decoration of the Chapel of the University of Salamanca, of which nothing remains.