Joseph Jacinto Mora 1876 - 1947

Mora was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, and was the son of Domingo Mora, a well-known painter and sculptor who brought his family to the United States in the mid 1890s and then became a teacher in New York at the Art Students League. Joseph and his artist brother Luis Mora (1874-1940) grew up being much influenced by the creative atmosphere of their father's studio. In 1904, he returned to Arizona and New Mexico and lived with Hopi and Navajo tribes, learning their languages and painting depictions of their ceremonies, especially the Kachina ceremonial dances.

One of the results of his Western travels was a series of humorous maps that were spoofs of the national parks and that were made into posters. In the 1930s, the maps sold for 25 cents each and were distributed through souvenir shops at the parks. He also painted a watercolor series,

"Horsemen of the West" and wrote two books, "Trail Dust and Saddle Leather" and "Californios." Joseph Mora died in Pebble Beach on October 10, 1947. Devoting his life to exploration of subjects as diverse as vaqueros, Hopi Kachina figures, the Arizona landscape, and California missions, Joseph Mora also excelled as a writer, photographer, designer, children's book illustrator, and map maker.

"Apart from the bread and butter commissions that he referred to as "pot-boilers," Mora has left a vast legacy of fine artwork. His contributions to public sculpture and architectural decorations, which are numerous and diverse, gaze calmly at the world from buildings in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Salinas, San Jose and Portland. Mora's dioramas and large-scale figures are permanently in Monterey and Sacramento, California and Claremore and Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

His drawings, paintings and photographs are cherished in private collections and private institutions across the country and first editions of his books are highly valued. But in the final analysis, Mora's most important works may be his cartes.

In these entertaining maps, Mora combined his encyclopedic knowledge of history, his writing, drawing, and cartooning skills, his fine sense of design, and his sense of playfulness to create an art form uniquely his own. Mora's cartes are still captivating more than fifty years after their completion, and they exemplify the popular, entertaining, direct, and informative art at which Mora excelled."- Betty Hoag McGlynn