He travelled to Kristiania (Oslo) at the age of eighteen and worked as a craft painter, until he decided to pursue an art education.
He studied painting in Munich under Heinz Heim and Carl F. Smith from 1885 to 1886. In 1887 he studied at the Academie Julian in Paris under Adolphe William Bougureau.
In 1889 he travelled to Henningsvær in Lofoten, a journey that laid the foundation for many of the paintings he painted with motifs from Lofoten. Several of these paintings hang today in Galleri Lofotens Hus in Henningsvær.
Ulving came to work extensively with motifs from Lofoten over the next fifteen years, including painting several pictures from the Lofoten fishery. His paintings from Lofoten are considered to be some of the highlights of his extensive production and have since given him a position as one of Northern Norway’s most important painters.
In 1914, Ulving moved to Åsgårdstrand in southern Norway. He produced a large number of pictures from this area and also made several trips abroad. After 1914 he painted very few pictures from Northern Norway.
