Francis Luis Mora

Francis Luis Mora was a painter, illustrator, muralist, etcher and teacher who was born on July 27, 1874 in Montivideo, Uruguay. He was the son of the famed Spanish painter and sculptor Domingo Mora and a French mother, Laura Laillard Mora. His early life was spent in Uruguay, South America. His parents brought him to the United States; where his father taught art at Perth Amboy, New Jersey; Boston and New York City.

Mora's art career was encouraged and fostered by his father. Mora was educated at Manning's Seminary in Perth Amboy, New Jersey and public schools in New York City and Boston. He was an art pupil of his father, of Henry Siddons Mowbray at the Art Students League in New York, and of the School of Boston Museum of Fine Arts under Frank Weston Benson and Edmund Charles Tarbell. He later made various trips abroad to study the works of the old masters.

Beginning in 1892 Mora was an illustrator for leading magazines. During his long diverse career, he was best known as an illustrator, a muralist and portrait artist in both watercolor and oil, yet he also did etchings and sculptures. By the time he was eighteen years of age, Mora was doing illustrations for many of the leading magazines and periodicals of the day. His career was maturing early. By the next year he was included in major fine art exhibitions. His first important mural commission was in 1900.

Mora eventually taught painting at the Art Students League, the Art School Grand Central and New York Schools of Art in New York City. In 1904 he became an associate member of the National Academy of Design and two years later he was elected a full member. He spent most of his life in New York City and in Gaylordsville, Connecticut, with occasional trips west to gather material for his Indian and western scene paintings.

Enjoying the outdoors, which he loved to paint, he also fished, ice skated and rode horseback. He was married twice and had a daughter, Rosemary, by his first wife. His older brother, Joseph Jacinto Mora, also was a noted southwestern painter, sculptor and spent time conducting ethnological studies of Indians in the West around 1900.

Though no additional information has been found, Mora is said to have authored a book, Indian Family, which is in the Harmsen collection. During his career, Mora developed a unique style of art that was both Spanish and modern American in flavor and technique. He died on June 5, 1940 in New York City.

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