Francis Luis Mora Uruguayan/American, 1874-1940

Overview

Born in Uruguay in 1874, his family moved to America when he was a child. His father, Domingo Mora, was a well-known Spanish artist who gave his son his early artistic training. Mora also attended the Boston Museum of Fine Arts School where he studied drawing and painting under Frank Benson and Edmund Trabell. Later he studied under H. Siddens Mowbray at the Art Students League in New York City.

 

As did most promising artists of the time, Mora traveled to Europe to study the great paintings of the Old Masters. The influence of the Spanish Masters, especially Velazquez, is evident in Mora's choice of subject matter and style throughout his career. "Perhaps it is these very conflicting conditions in the life of Mr. Luis Mora that have evolved the unusual quality of his art, an art essentially Spanish in subject and feeling and wholly modern and American in expression (Craftsm, 17:402)."

 

Over two hundred of Mora's sketchbooks are conserved at the Archives of American Art. The particular sketchbooks from which the exhibited drawings are derived can be dated back to the early 20th century when Mora resided in Gaylordsville, Connecticut, New York City, and briefly in Carmel, California. Mora was also commissioned to paint the portraits of Andrew Carnegie and President Warren G. Harding, both of which hang in the White House.

Memberships

Allied Artists of America

American Ceramic Society

American Watercolor Society

Art Students League of New York (vice president)

Boston Art Club

Kent Art Association (founding member, 1923)

Lotos Club

MacDowell Club

National Academy of Design (ANA, 1904; NA, 1906)

National Arts Club

National Association of Portrait Painters

New York Architectural League

New York Society of Painters

New York Watercolor Club

Pen and Brush Club

Philadelphia Art Club

Players Club

Salmagundi Club

Society of American Artists

Society of American Etchers

Society of Illustrators

Town Hall Club

Select Exhibitions

Art Institute of Chicago

Art Students League, solo exhibition, 1909

Boston Art Club                                     

National Academy of Design, 1896-1941

New York School of Art, Solo Exhibition, 1907

Panama Pacific Exhibition (two gold medals), 1915

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Philadelphia Art Club

St. Louis Worlds Fair, 1904

Museums and Public Collections

Butler Institute of American Art, Ohio

Greater Lafayette Museum, Indiana

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York                          

National Academy of Design, New York                                

National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

National Park Service, Arizona Ebbel homestead                                                   

Newark Museum, New Jersey

New York Historical Society                                        

Oakland Museum, California

Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona

San Diego Museum of Art, California

San Francisco Museum of Art, California

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.                                                

Toledo Museum, Ohio                                                            

White House, Washington, D.C.             

Request information

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