F. Luis Mora - Professional Career

Professional Career

In 1904 Mora was voted an Associate member of the National Academy of Design, and was elected a full member in 1906, probably its first Hispanic member. He was also voted as a member to 15 other art societies. Mora won numerous medals and awards within the New York artistic community, including the Rothschild Prize, the Carnegie Prize, the Shaw Purchase Prize at the Salmagundi Club; and in 1915 he won a gold medal at the Panama Pacific International Exhibition in San Francisco.

Mora taught illustration and life classes at both William Merritt Chase's Chase School of Art (renamed the New York School of Art in 1898, later to become Parsons) and the Art Students League. Among his students was Georgia O'Keeffe, who studied with him between 1907 and 1908. During this time Mora also embarked upon a successful and prolific career as an illustrator, producing work for several books and publications, including Harper's Weekly, Scribner's, The Century, Collier's, Sunday Magazine, and Ladies' Home Journal. Additionally, during World War I Mora was one of several illustrators who volunteered to create motivational World War I posters for the Third and Fourth Liberty Loan Boards, U.S. Committee on Public Information.

In addition to his success as an easel painter and illustrator, Mora became a well known muralist. His first mural, in 1900, was a commission for the Lynn Public Library in Lynn, Massachusetts. Following that, Mora received a commission for the Missouri State Building at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (also known as the St. Louis World's Fair)in 1904. He continued to receive commissions, including murals for Columbia College, the Governor's Mansion of New Jersey, the Red Cross, The Town Club and Bar in Manhattan, the 1939 New York World's Fair, and in the Sears family (Sears & Roebuck) country home in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Mora was also a successful portraitist who counted Andrew Carnegie among his subjects. After at least one attempt by another artist, Mora was selected by the Fine Arts Commission to paint a posthumous portrait of President Warren G. Harding. That portrait remains on permanent display in the White House. He painted portraits of Society matrons and their children, prominent physicians and attorneys; and around 1915 he painted a series of portraits of actresses and dancers, including Isadora Duncan.

Mora would return to Spain frequently throughout his career, and he had at least two extended stays when he painted. During 1905, he rented a studio in Madrid from which to work, and in 1909 he and Sonia spent an entire year abroad when he took a studio in Seville.

He and Sonia bought land in Gaylordsville, Connecticut in 1913, where he painted an array of easel paintings of everyday life in the countryside. On July 22, 1918, Mora's daughter, Rosemary, was born. She became his constant subject, and in 1921 he had a solo exhibition at the venerable William Macbeth Gallery, entitled "An American Summer," with many watercolors picturing toddler Rosemary. In 1923, he completed his summer home and studio; and in 1924, Mora was a co-founder of the Kent Art Association in Connecticut. In 1927, Mora had a solo exhibition at the Buenos Aires Museo de Bellas Artes (Argentina), which received glowing reviews in The New York Times.

In 1931, Mora's beloved wife, Sonia, died suddenly of food poisoning. A few months later, he took Rosemary out of school and went to live with his brother, Jo Mora, on the Monterey Peninsula. He soon returned to New York in 1932 to marry a former portrait sitter and wealthy widow, May Safford. Mora was 58 years old, and May was 53 and had a grown daughter who was already married. Although he continued to exhibit, he won no further medals and few, if any, of his easel paintings were selling. Because of the Great Depression, he also suffered a dearth of portrait commissions, and his illustrations became few. Sadly, May did not get along with Rosemary; and Mora sent Rosemary to expensive boarding schools, further compromising his financial situation. Mora gradually ran out of money, and in 1939 he rented his beloved Gaylordsville property to strangers.

Mora died on June 5, 1940, in May's elegant apartment in New York. He was 64, just six weeks before his 65th birthday.