Ulf Baungaard
Tibetan Thangkhas painter
Ulf Baungaard was born in Denmark the 19 th of April in 1947. His passion for the fine arts comes from his father, who inspired him since he was an Asian art enthusiast.When he was 18 years old, before the hippie counterculture movement spread in Europe, he and a group of friends interested in spirituality and religious Philosophy, among them Lama Ole Nydahl and his wife Hanna, who knew each other from the school years. Together they started to study books on all the great religions of the world, and Ulf became especially interested in Tibetan Buddhism. Motivated by this passion, Ulf traveled to Nepal from Denmark in 1966 to venture in Philosophy and Asian arts.
Ulf lived with a yogi who taught him the science of the yoga and Hindu scriptures, such as the Vedas, Mahabharata, Bhagavad Gita and Ramayana among many other Philosophy books.
In 1968 an unexpected encounter with his friends from his childhood, Ole y Hannah Nydahl en Swayambhunath, Nepal, led to a meeting with the 16th Karmapa, the head of the Tibetan Kargyupa Lineage, for the first time in 1968. At that time Ulf started to study the Art of Tibetan Thankas guided by his teacher Dawa Nurbu Lama from Solo Khumbu who was a pupil of Au Leshey, a well-known painter in Nepal. Ulf learned with him the technique of the proportional drawings of Tibetan iconography.
After being with this Master, he started to study with Gin- La Pema Khochok and Kuchu- La Dorje Drakpa, who taught him to paint in the Lhatog style of Kham (eastern Tibet) where these masters came from. Only a few westerners had this rare opportunity to learn from such masters at that time. All of his studies were conducted in Nepali and Tibetan as none of the masters spoke English.
Ulf lived in Nepal until 1981 studying and improving his technique and selling his paintings as his only income.
Later that year, he returned to Denmark and not been able to live from his paintings in that country, he started to work on sailing boats that were dedicated to the rehabilitation of youngsters with behavior problems including drug addiction. Shortly after that, he decided to buy his own sailing boat and use it for similar activities and charters in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea.
Ulf traveled to Margarita Island in Venezuela in 1988 where he fell in love and married Crucita in 1989. He then started another important stage of his life and he took up his painting again.
Being a great fan of cooking, Ulf funded his own catering service company and started to train people on Asian cooking, Danish Smorgasbord and other specialties. He catered many parties and other social events with success earning him broad recognition for his culinary talent and hard work.
Ulf and his wife Crucita traveled around many different countries in America and Europe until they found their current residency, Costa Rica. Ulf found inspiration there in its nature as well as the peace of that Central American country.
