Here by author and researcher Nancy W. Grossman shares with Digital Gallery viewers her introduction to Jo Mora as found in her book Jo Mora's Carte of Los Angeles: A Trail Guide published in December 2019.
Further in the digital exhibit, the dots found on the map correspond to a few of the sections in her book each of which articulates the significance of those vignettes found on Jo Mora's carte...
"Joseph Jacinto “Jo” Mora. How does one begin to summarize such an
enormous life?
Jo Mora, Renaissance Man of the West, is the phrase I come upon most,
that and Jo Mora, cowboy cartographer. This man is also a writer, a painter, illustrator and muralist, sculptor and photographer, and a cartoonist and
comic artist, which will come as no
surprise to fans of his cartes. He even
designs a 1925 half dollar coin for the
US Mint commemorating the state of
California’s 75th anniversary.
During an insurgency in 1877,
the Mora family flees Uruguay. Jo is
a year old at the time; his brother
Luis is three. They go first to Barcelona, finally arriving in the US in
1880, where they settle in the greater New York area. Both boys are already deep into the making of art; at
the ages of eight and ten respectively, they consider creating a twenty-
foot mural of the Iroquois Indian wars,
though there’s no record of them actually doing so.
Their father Domingo is an accomplished sculptor. Jo and Luis attend
primary school in Perth Amboy and
grammar school in Allston, Massachusetts. At 15, Jo completes the Boston Latin School, and graduates from the Pingry Academy in Elizabeth,
New Jersey in 1894. Both study sculpture under their father, who teaches
art in Perth Amboy, Boston and New York City.
By 1895 Jo’s studying at the Art Students League, the Chase School of
Art in New York and the Cowles Art School in Boston – and, at 19, has
already produced poster murals for the Clermont Skating Rink in Brooklyn. Returning to Boston, Jo goes to work first for the Boston Traveler and
then becomes a member of the Boston Herald art staff for the next four
years, illustrating articles plus various books.
In 1903, he takes a trip west, working as a cowpuncher on
a ranch in Solvang near the Mission Santa Ines, which inspires him to
travel the entire Camino Real and sketch the Missions he saw. In 1904 he
travels by mule-drawn wagon across Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Sequoia
National Park and the Mojave Desert to Needles on his way to the Hopi mesas in Arizona. In Arizona, he is permitted to witness the Hopi Snake Dance, then
sets to both photographing and producing detailed artwork of the
ceremonies of the Hopi and Navaho tribes he’s gotten to know over
two years of living among them.
Upon settling back in California he will marry Grace Needham, of San Jose, CA., at the Mission San Gabriel in 1907 and start to raise his soon to be born children Jo, Jr. and patty.
Mora publishes twelve of his iconic cartes over his lifetime. The first, Monterey Peninsula, his second, The 17 Mile Drive, and the first version of
California all come out in 1927. San Diego appears in 1928. The three
national parks, Yosemite, Yellowstone and Grand Canyon, all come out in
1931. Grace Line Fleet to the Old Spanish Main and Evolution of the Cowboy:
Levi’s Round-Up of Cowboy Lore are published in 1933; the latter is a poster
rather than a map, as is his Indians of North America in 1936. Carmel-by-
the-Sea and Los Angeles are both issued in 1942. A second, smaller version
of California will be his last, in 1945. An unfinished pencil rendering of a
map of Catalina is found after his death.
But cartes are hardly all Jo Mora does. This man’s work is as varied
as it is prolific. Starting out collaborating with his father, he finds himself
working on huge architectural projects. In Los Angeles, at least four
buildings include his work, including the Palace Theatre; he is assisting
his father on four sculpted allegorical panels representing song, dance, music and drama when his father dies while this commission is still in
progress. Mora completes it.
In San Jose, Mora creates two heroic male sphinx figures for the
Scottish Rite Temple [today the San Jose Athletic Club], plus bas-reliefs
over its entrance and throughout the building. He provides decorative
elements for the Monterey County Courthouse, as well as numerous
detailed panels for the King City High School auditorium. In Carmel, he sculpts Father Junipero Serra’s cenotaph, an altar and a cross.
He creates pediments and bas-relief panels for four buildings in San
Francisco; his Miguel de Cervantes looks down on his Don Quixote and
Sancho Panza in the Golden Gate Park.
A marble bench with sculpted bears
by Mora sits in front of the Sather
Tower on the UC Berkeley campus. He
creates the main entrance doorway and
sculptures of bears to support fountains for the Union Wool Building in
Boston. He designs a number of homes himself.
Architectural work is just one facet of Mora’s endless creativity. He designs everything from ordinary scale sculptures, many of cowboys breaking broncs, to “heroic” (larger than life) sculptures, to bronze plaques and
vast murals. He creates fifteen or more dioramas, thirteen for the Will
Rogers Memorial in Claremore, Oklahoma.
One diorama, exhibited at the California State Building at the 1939
Golden Gate International Exposition, is a one-hundred-foot-long depiction of the 1769 Portolá Expedition. Tragically, it is destroyed in a fire six
months after the opening of the fair.
Mora illustrates countless books, both his own and for those of others.
He designs bookends, trophies, coins and scrip certificates for use in Carmel during the Depression. He sculpts his son Jo Jr. at three years of age,
reata in hand, breaking a hobby horse."
