Francis Luiis Mora, N.A. (1874-1940)
Self Portrait, 1897
oil on canvas 22 x 36 inches
signed and dated lower right
Provenance, Estate of Jo Mora, Jr., the artist's
nephew.
Condition: Cleaned and restored by Yost
Conservation, Oxford, CT. New stretcher. Areas of in-painting where
un-stretched canvas had been creased. Canvas was strengthened with BEVA (a
conservation wax substance). Conservation panel verso.
This is a self-portrait of F. Luis Mora in 1897 when he
was 23 years old. It is loosely and deftly painted in American
Impressionist style. By 1897, Mora had already graduated from the Boston
Museum School of Art with the great Impressionist, Edmund Tarbell, and taken
classes at the Art Students League with H. Siddons Mowbray. In 1897,
Mora was an instructor at the (William Merritt) Chase School of Art in
Manhattan and was illustrating for Harper's magazines. It was just the
beginning of his long and distinguished career as an artist.
The painting shows Mora's admiration for William
Merritt Chase. Mora wears a suit and tie, as Chase was known to wear while
painting. Mora is wearing a painter's beret, and a ring on his right hand,
as he was not yet married. Mora often grew a fashionable mustache, and
he is smoking a fashionable cigarette. The background is loosely painted
with objects and cloths giving the painting its texture, balanced
composition and shots of color. The scene is most likely the artist in
his own studio.
