Jo Mora

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Jo Mora
Jo Mora 1931 Yosemite map.jpg
Yosemite Map
Born
Joseph Jacinto Mora

(1876-10-22)October 22, 1876
Montevideo, Uruguay
DiedOctober 10, 1947(1947-10-10) (aged 70)
Monterey, California
NationalityUruguayan-born American
Known forPainting, drawing, sculpture, muralist
StyleRealism
Spouse(s)Grace Needham
Children2
WebsiteOfficial Website

Joseph Jacinto Mora (October 22, 1876 – October 10, 1947) was a Uruguayan-born American cowboy, photographer, artist, cartoonist, illustrator, painter, muralist, sculptor, and historian who lived with the Hopi and wrote about his experiences in California. He has been called the "Renaissance Man of the West".[1]

Biography[]

Mora was born on October 22, 1876 in Montevideo, Uruguay. His father was the Catalan sculptor, Domingo Mora, and his mother was Laura Gaillard Mora, an intellectual born in the Bordeaux region of France. His elder brother was F. Luis Mora, who would become an artist and the first Hispanic member of the National Academy of Design. The family entered the United States in 1880 and first settled in New York City, and then Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Jo Mora studied art at the Art Students League of New York and the Cowles School in Boston. He also studied with William Merritt Chase. He worked as a cartoonist for the Boston Evening Traveller, and later, the Boston Herald.[2]

In the spring of 1903, Mora arrived in Solvang, California. He stayed at the Donohue Ranch. He made plans to travel to the Southwest to paint and photograph the Hopi. He spent time at the Mission Santa Inés; those photographs are now maintained by the Smithsonian Institution. Mora visited many Spanish missions in California that summer by horseback. He followed the "Mission Trail", also called the "Kings Highway".

In 1904, Mora visited Yosemite.[3] Later, in 1904, to 1906, Mora lived with the Hopi and Navajo near Oraibi, Arizona.[4] He took photographs,[5] painted[6] and otherwise recorded the daily life of these Native Americans, including the Hopi Snake Dance. He learned the Native languages and made detailed drawings of what he observed.[7]

In 1907, Mora wrote and illustrated the comic strip Animaldom.[8]

In 1907, Mora returned to California and married Grace Needham. Their son, Joseph Needham Mora, was born on March 8, 1908. The Moras moved to San Jose, California, where Mora continued his work.

On 22 February 1911, the Native Sons of the Golden West Building, in San Francisco, with six terra cotta panels, by Domingo Mora and his son, Jo Mora, was dedicated.[9][10] In 1915, he served on the International Jury of Awards at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition and displayed six sculptures.[11] In 1915-16 two of his sculptural commissions were revealed: the bronze memorial tablet with the profile of the late Archbishop Patrick W. Riordan for the Knights of Columbus and the Cervantes Monument in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.[12][13] By 1919, he was sculpting for the Bohemian Club, including the Bret Harte Memorial plaque, completed in August 1919 and mounted on the outside of the private men's club building in San Francisco. In 1925, he designed the commemorative half dollar for the California Diamond Jubilee. During this period he also illustrated a number of books, made large murals, and published charts, maps (cartes) and diagrams of the West and Western themes. Beginning in 1937, Mora wrote and illustrated children's books about the West. In 1939, a Works Progress Administration project was completed, with Mora bas-relief sculpture adorning the King City High School Auditorium building.

In 1921 the Mora family moved their primary residence to the largest art colony on the West Coast, Carmel-by-the-Sea. Mora received a commission for the bronze and travertine Cenotaph, for Father Junípero Serra in the Memorial Chapel at the west end of Mission Carmel.[11][14][15][16] He served on the board of directors of the Carmel Art Association, where his sculptures were exhibited between 1927 and 1934. He co-established Carmel's first private art gallery which was operated by resident artists.[17] In 1931 Jo, his wife, and daughter Patricia moved to nearby Pebble Beach into a newly built home. Five years later in the adjoining large studios he completed his massive diorama, Discovery of the San Francisco Bay by Portola, for the California Pavilion at the 1939-40 Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island. At a length of almost 100 feet, with 64 sculptures of Spaniards and Indians and over 200 animals, it was said "to surpass anything of its kind at the Fair."[18][19] He fashioned smaller dioramas for the Will Rogers Memorial Museum in Claremore, Oklahoma and the Sutter's Fort Museum in Sacramento, California.[20][21]

Between 1908 and the late 1940s his sculptures, illustrations,[22] watercolors and etchings were frequently exhibited across the United States.[11][23][24]

Death[]

Mora died October 10, 1947, in Monterey, California. His last book, Californios, which was devoted to the life of the rancheros of Alta California, was published posthumously.[25][26][27]

In music[]

  • Mora's image, "Evolution of the Cowboy",[28] a 1933 poster, reprinted in 1939, promoting the California Rodeo Salinas, next re-purposed, beginning in 1950, as Levi Strauss & Co. advertising, and later, part of the poster, the image of the Sweetheart of the Rodeo, was used on The Byrds' 1968 album Sweetheart of the Rodeo.[29][30]
  • Western performer Mike Beck's album Where the Green Grass Grows includes a song about Mora entitled "In Old California". It was written by Beck and Ian Tyson.[citation needed]

Coinage[]

Mora designed the 1925 California Diamond Jubilee half dollar.

Works[]

  • Ford, Tirey Lafayette; Mora, Jo (1926). Dawn and the dons; the romance of Monterey. San Francisco: A.M. Robertson. OCLC 948436391.
  • Mora, Jo, Jr. (1933). A Log of the Spanish Main: A Jo Mora Diary. San Francisco: Jo Mora, Jr. OCLC 652341703.
  • Mora, Jo (1946). Trail Dust and Saddle Leather. C. Scribner's Sons. ISBN 978-0-598-51246-8.
  • Mora, Jo (1949). Californios, the Saga of the Hard-riding Vaqueros: America's First Cowboys. Doubleday. OCLC 961562.

Bibliography[]

  • When I Get Wound Up Writing I'm a Bad Article to Squelch: The Written Words of Jo Mora by Peter Hiller.[31] (2008) ISBN 0-615-23139-X.
  • The Life and Times of Jo Mora: Iconic Artist of the American West by Peter Hiller.[32] Published by the Book Club of California, San Francisco, CA. October 2019. ISBN 978-0-692-05342-3.
  • The Life and Times of Jo Mora: Iconic Artist of the American West by Peter Hiller.[33] Published by Gibbs-Smith, Layton, Utah. April, 2021. ISBN 978-1-423-65735-4 (Hardcover)

Museum Catalogs[]

  • The Year of the Hopi: Paintings and Photographs by Joseph Mora, 1904-'06, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C., 1979
  • Jo Mora: Artist and Writer, Monterey Museum of Art, 1998
  • Back to the Drawing Board with Artist Jo Mora, Monterey History and Art Association, Monterey, CA, 2003

Gallery[]

References[]

  1. ^ Jo Mora, Renaissance Man of the West
  2. ^ Hiller, Peter. The Life and Times of Jo Mora, Iconic Artist of the American West. Gibbs Smith. Layton, Utah. ISBN 978-1-423-65735-4.
  3. ^ https://www.mariposaartscouncil.org/who-is-jo-mora/
  4. ^ Jo Mora Hopi Indian Photograph Collection
  5. ^ Jo Mora Hopi KACHINA CEREMONY
  6. ^ Watercolor on paper under Plexiglas
  7. ^ Pecina, Ron and Pecina, Bob. Neil David's Hopi World. Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 2011. ISBN 978-0-7643-3808-3; pp.8,9,54,55.
  8. ^ Joseph Jacinto Mora Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, The Ohio State University
  9. ^ Native Sons Of The Golden West
  10. ^ History of the NSGW Building
  11. ^ Jump up to: a b c Edwards, Robert W. (2012). Jennie V. Cannon: The Untold History of the Carmel and Berkeley Art Colonies, Vol. 1. Oakland, Calif.: East Bay Heritage Project. pp. 191, 265, 522–525, 690. ISBN 9781467545679. An online facsimile of the entire text of Vol. 1 is posted on the Traditional Fine Arts Organization website ("Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2016-04-29. Retrieved 2016-06-07.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)).
  12. ^ The Oakland Tribune, 5 September 1915, p. 19.
  13. ^ The Wasp (San Francisco, CA), 9 September 1916, p. 11.
  14. ^ Mission Statement
  15. ^ Komanecky, Michael K.: Jo Mora and the Missions of California, in: Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Esteticas, Vol. 91, 2007, 207- 217
  16. ^ Carmel Mission, Mora Chapel
  17. ^ Carmel Pine Cone: 12 June 1931, p.2; 7 August 1931, p.7.
  18. ^ The Oakland Tribune, 13 October 1938, p. 4; 25 June 1939, p.B-7.
  19. ^ Carmel Pine Cone, 21 October 1938, p.10.
  20. ^ The Carmel Cymbal, 27 September 1940, p. 6.
  21. ^ The Oakland Tribune, 24 August 1946, p. 1-C.
  22. ^ Hotel del Monte
  23. ^ Joseph Jacinto Mora
  24. ^ Joseph Jacinto Mora
  25. ^ New York Times: 20 June 1949, p. 17; 26 June 1949, p.BR-10.
  26. ^ Los Angeles Times, 10 July 1949, p. 4-5.
  27. ^ pictures
  28. ^ Tarquinio, Holly (15 September 2016). "The Evolution of the Cowboy – 1933 Jo Mora". Quarter Horse News. Retrieved 2 September 2021.
  29. ^ Mora, Jo. ""Evolution of the Cowboy": Levi's Round-Up of Cowboy Lore". rare maps.
  30. ^ Lane, Baron (August 29, 2018). "5 Things You May Not Know About The Byrds' 'Sweetheart of the Rodeo'". Twang Nation. Retrieved 2018-08-30.
  31. ^ Monterey County’s Prolific Artist Unveiled
  32. ^ Jo Mora Remembered
  33. ^ The Life and Times of Jo Mora

External links[]

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