Francis Luis Mora (1874-1940)

F. Luis Mora was born in Montevideo, Uruguay to a family with artistic tradition. His father, Domingo Mora (1840-1911), was a Spanish architectural sculptor. Luis studied art with his father, as did his brother was Joseph Jacinto Jo Mora (1876-1947), who would become a noted California artist.

Luis Mora entered the Boston Museum School of Fine Art in 1889, when he was fifteen years old, studying under Frank Benson and Edmund Tarbell. In 1893, Mora returned to New York to work as an illustrator and to study composition at the Art Students League.

As the new century dawned Mora would move more fully into the artistic community of New York, becoming a successful figural painter, portraitist, muralist, illustrator and teacher. Mora was elected to the National Academy of Design and gained membership in The National Arts Club, The Art Students League, The Salmagundi Club, The Pen and Brush Club, The Architectural League, The American Watercolor Society, and many other art societies. He exhibited and won medals at National Academy competitions and the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904.

Mora's life-long artistic goal was to adapt techniques of the Spanish Old Masters into American modern painting. Mora frequently traveled to Spain to visit his extended family, to paint and to study masterpieces in the Prado. He had a solo show of Spanish paintings in 1910 at the New York Watercolor Club. Andrew Carnegie and Alfred Steiglitz were among his many patrons who, like a growing number of collectors today, recognize that he stands among the great American artists of the period. He is an artist to watch in the coming years.