Lot 351: F. Luis Mora O/C Spanish Village Street Scene Painting

Francis Luis Mora (American/Uruguay, 1874-1940) oil on canvas village street scene, likely Spain, with a boy seated beside a donkey, 1909. Behind the boy buildings rise above a wall covered with flowering vegetation, with a sliver of blue sky visible at upper center. An unseen building casts a long shadow through the foreground. Signed and dated lower right. Housed in a giltwood frame with linen liner. Canvas: 22 in. H x 18 in. W. Sight: 21 1/2 in. H x 17 1/2 in. W. Framed: 24 3/4 in. H x 28 3/4 in. W. Biography: Francis Luis Mora was born into a family of artists in Uruguay; his father was an Spanish architectural sculptor and his brother Joseph became a noted California artist. The family moved to Massachusetts when F. Luis Mora was a child. He entered the Boston Museum School of Fine Art at the age of 15, studying under Frank Benson and Edmund Tarbell, and later at the Art Students League. Mora was inspired by the work of Diego Valzquez and painted frequently in Spain, with a lifelong goal to bring the techniques of the Spanish Old Masters into American modern painting. He found success in the American market as a figural painter, portraitist, muralist and illustrator HIs portrait of president Warren G. Harding hangs in the White House. In 1926, Mora became the first Hispanic member of the National Academy of Design. He won medals at the St. Louis World’s Fair Exhibition in 1904, at the Pan American Exhibition in San Francisco in 1914, and three medals at National Academy competitions. He also taught at various schools including William Merritt Chase’s Chase School of Art, the Art Students League, and the Grand Central School of Art. His work is owned by over two dozen American museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Source: Lynne Pauls Baron, author of F. LUIS MORA: AMERICA’S FIRST HISPANIC MASTER. 

PROVENANCE:

Private Nashville Collection. 

CONDITION:

Overall very good condition.