Sketch of Mirror Lake from Jo Mora's Yosemite sketchbook - June 1904. This sketch and other original sketches will be on display at the Mariposa County Arts Council's Treetop Gallery July 28 - October 25, 2014.

The Mariposa County Arts Council is pleased to bring a special exhibition of artwork created by noted California artist Joseph Jacinto "Jo" Mora (1876–1947) to the Treetop Gallery this summer. The exhibition, Mora in Yosemite, features photographs, sketches, illustrations, cartes, and sculptures created by Jo Mora. The work in the exhibition was inspired by Yosemite and the Sierra and will be accompanied by excerpts from his journal entries written while in Yosemite during the summer of 1904. 

“Mora was inspired by the same landscapes and characters that majority of our local artists also derive inspiration from, so it is a delight to show regional contemporary pieces alongside the work that Mora created over 100 years ago. Additionally, it’s a thrill to be able to bring work of this caliber to our local community,” shared Arts Council Director, Cara Goger. 

Mora was born in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1876, to a Catalonian father and French mother and soon after his birth moved to New England where he grew up studying art alongside his brother Luis. Drawn to the West, Mora began his travels and work in the declining Western frontier in his late teens, working for a newspaper and then as a cattle wrangler while soaking up every bit of the region. 

At the turn of the twentieth century, "no one captured the fading frontier more colorfully than Joseph Jacinto "Jo" Mora. No one made more scholarly study of it western subjects, be they human, animal, or object... Living with Hopi Indian tribes as an adopted son, he was initiated into their sacred rites. Traveling the wilderness of the Pacific coast ranges from Old Mexico into the Pacific Northwest, he experienced the "Old West" at a time when the mission chain was crumbling away in neglect and the gold rush was losing its lure," Betty Hoag McGlynn 

Primarily self-taught, Mora profitably worked as sculptor, painter, muralist, etcher, illustrator, cartoonist, map-maker, photographer, author, actor, and designer throughout the duration of his life. Native American, cowboys, the American landscape, California history, and his love of animals remained his constant sources of inspiration. His work adorns many buildings in San Francisco, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Portland, Monterey, Carmel, San Jose, Salinas, and King City and his sculptures, artwork and illustrations can be found in the de Young Museum, the Monterey History and Art Association collection, the California Historical Society, Tulare County Museum, Los Angeles Public Library, the Will Roger’s Memorial Museum, the Woolaroc Museum, Great Plains Museum, Northern Arizona University’s Cline Library, and the Smithsonian. A testament to his talent and vision, Mora was commissioned to create the memorial cenotaph for Father Junipero Serra and the three Franciscan monks buried beside him in Carmel.

A public reception for Mora in Yosemite will be held at the Treetop Gallery on Friday, August 8, 2014 from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Mora in Yosemite will run through October 25, 2014.

We are grateful to the Jo Mora Trust, Carol Johnson, and the Tuolumne County Art Alliance for their support of this special exhibition.

This exhibition in an official Yosemite Grant 150 Anniversary event. 

The Arts Council is an incorporated not-for-profit organization, created to promote and support all forms of the cultural arts, for all ages, throughout Mariposa County and is supported in part by the County of Mariposa, the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, and the California Arts Council, a state agency.