Paintings by F. Luis Mora, August 9-September 8, 1928

Figural painter, portraitist, muralist, and illustrator Francis Luis Mora was born in Montevideo, Uruguay on July 27, 1874 to Domingo Mora and Laura Gaillard. Both his father Domingo and brother Joseph Jacinto "Jo" Mora were noted sculptors. His mother’s sisters married into the extended Bacardi rum family of Santiago, Cuba.

In 1877, the Mora family moved to Catalonia, Spain and then moved to the United States in 1880, settling in Perth Amboy, New Jersey where Domingo Mora became the Director of Design for the Perth Amboy Terra Cotta Company. Luis Mora received his first art education from his father. Mora graduated from high school in Allston, Massachusetts and then entered the Boston School of Fine Art in 1889 at the age of fifteen. He studied under Impressionist artists Frank Benson and Edmund Tarbell. In 1893, Mora returned to New York City to work as an illustrator and to study composition with Orientalist artist H. Siddons Mowbray at the Art Students League.

Mora’s life-long artistic goal was to adapt the techniques of the Spanish Old Masters into American modern painting. In 1904 he was elected an Associate at the National Academy of Design and became a full member in 1906. He was the first Hispanic artist to be elected to the Academy. Mora won a medal at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco.

Mora was known for his paintings and drawings depicting American life in the early 20th century, Spanish life and society, historical and allegorical subjects, as well as murals, easel paintings, and illustrations. He was also a popular teacher of figural drawing and painting, known as “Life Classes.” He taught at William Merritt Chase’s Chase School of Art, formerly the New York School of Art, as well as the Art Students’ League, the Art School at the Ethical Culture Society, and the Grand Central School of Art.

In 1900, Mora married Sophia Brown Compton, daughter of the Mayor of his hometown Perth Amboy, New Jersey. They lived in New York City, but Mora kept a studio in Perth Amboy. In 1912 Mora bought 28 acres in the Litchfield Hills, Gaylordsville, Connecticut, where he and his wife completed their summer home and studio in 1922. Their only child, Rosemary Mora, was born in 1918 in New York City. Sophia Mora died suddenly in 1931 in Danbury Hospital, CT. Mora’s second wife was May Safford. F. Luis Mora died at age 64 on June 5, 1940 at his wife’s apartment in New York City.

Source: Baron, Lynne Pauls. “F. Luis Mora.” F. Luis Mora - Artists - Spellman Gallery. AskART. Accessed April 13, 2022. https://www.spellmangallery.com/artists/f-luis-mora.