In June of 1904, Jo Mora and another friend set off for Southwest Indian country, driving an open wagon pulled by a pair of wayward mules. They chose a route which led through Yosemite Park, resulting in more adventures than most men experience in a lifetime. The young men survived and arrived at Oraibi just in time to witness the famous Hopi Snake Dance. Jo decided to remain in the region to paint and photograph, and took a studio at Polacca, which is halfway between Oraibi and Keams Canyon. Later he shared the studio of already-famous E.A. Burbank at Walpi. It was Burbank who suggested that Mora make a scientific study of the magnificent Kachina costumes, and it was Burbank who induced the Indians to pose for the young stranger in his studio. It did not take Jo Mora long to learn the language of the Hopi and also of the Navajo; later he was adopted into both tribes. The Hopi held him in such respect that one of the chiefs even came to Mora one day and asked for help in designing a new Kachina mask, using ideas gleaned from the picture of a quail which appeared in Jo’s field book on western birds.

In addition to his drawings of the Kachinas, Jo took constant notes about what he saw and thought. Frequently he wrote to his parents and to Grace, describing the sometimes frightening, always very awesome and moving, mystic religious rites which he was allowed to observe. Jo Mora was no anthropologist: as he himself exclaimed, “I’ve often thanked God it was my sincere job to paint these Katchinas [sic] exactly as I saw them operating … I’m glad I didn’t have to find out why they did this, and why they didn’t.” Nevertheless, he was dedicated to photographing the Indians at work, at home, and during their ceremonies, taking pictures which were compositionally beautiful but never posed, never romanticized; pictures which are an incredibly precious record for today’s anthropologists because the Hopi tribal council outlawed artists and photographers in their villages in 1910, four years after Jo Mora’s departure. A recent Smithsonian exhibition catalog noted, “This one man’s photographs and paintings should eventually be recognized as one of the greatest visual contributions a non-Indian has produced on the Hopi culture.”

Throughout his life, Jo Mora was able to use his knowledge of the Southwest Indians. At one time he served in the United States Army as an interpreter during a reservation uprising. Another time the Hollywood movie industry engaged him as a consultant on Indian lore. And of course, Indians were subjects of great importance in his artwork, as witness the white marble head of the Navajo girl and the large oil painting “The Moccasin Maker,” both on display at Casa Serrano, headquarters of the Monterey History and Art Association.

Toward the end of 1906, Jo Mora returned to San Jose and claimed Grace’s hand. The couple was married on January 6, 1907, at the mission which had so appealed to the artist earlier, San Juan Capistrano. The following year the Moras bought a small cattle ranch on hills near Mountain View, overlooking the Santa Clara Valley which was at that time mostly glorious orchards. Jo’s parents joined them, and the men shared a studio and conducted an active practice. At Casa Serrano, there is a fine marble portrait bust of a man, signed jointly by the sculptors. After old Domingo’s death in 1911, Jo finished all work they had in progress. Then in 1914 he and Grace moved to San Francisco and the artist began to fulfill what would become a lifetime of commissions for major sculptural pieces all over the United States. The only time Jo Mora was away from his studio was during World War I when he served in the field artillery, attaining the rank of major.

The Moras moved to Carmel-by-the-Sea in 1920, and Jo established a studio at the Carmel Mission where he began one of his most handsome pieces, the monumental bronze and travertine sarcophagus group of Father Serra and his assistants. After finishing this work the Moras acquired a new home at Pebble Beach where Jo had a separate studio and the whole family enjoyed keeping horses.

Jo Mora became involved in civic activities such as taking part in Forest Theatre plays; he is still remembered for his lead role in “The Bad Man.” The Del Monte Properties in 1922 commissioned another statue of Father Serra which Jo made of painted wood; it is today a well-known landmark in Carmel Woods, a gift to the town from the company. Another historical sculpture was commissioned by Del Monte and given to the Monterey History and Art Association: the 1926 La Novia, now on loan to the Naval Postgraduate School. In 1928 Jo Mora created a dual composition for L.C. Merril’s new arcade in Carmel, El Paseo; the courtly little figures can be seen gracing the inner court at Dolores and Seventh. Extensive work was done by Mora in 1936 for the new County Courthouse in Salinas; working closely with architect Robert Stanton, he designed innumerable details, everything from a fountain to wall decorations to metal door placards. The exterior of King City’s Auditorium has a whole front façade of Jo Mora sculpture.

Other works for which Jo Mora is famous include heroic bronzes for the Marland estate in Ponca City, Oklahoma; thirteen biographical dioramas of his friend Will Rogers for the Memorial in Claremore, Oklahoma; a diorama for Sutter’s Fort in Sacramento. One of Jo’s earliest works was done in 1913 when Julia Morgan (remembered as Hearst’s “lady architect”) asked for his cooperation with interior decorations for the Los Angeles Examiner Building. “Montalvo,” Senator Phelan’s estate near Saratoga, California, has a Mora fountain. The University of California at Berkeley campus contains a travertine marble bench designed by Jo Mora. He did the Post Office and Court House in Portland, Oregon; as well as a bronze doorway in the Union Wool Building at Boston, Massachusetts. Mora’s “Dough Boy Memorial” is in Marin County, and San Jose has his heroic figures on its Scottish Rite Temple. San Francisco has many examples of Jo Mora’s work; best known are his “Cervantes” sculpture in Golden Gate Park and the Bret Harte memorial on a wall of the Bohemian Club. He did murals for the Drake-Wilshire Hotel in the city; also for the Hotel Canterbury which has transferred them to a private girls’ school where the nuns are delighted to use them as vibrant examples of California history. Jo was on the Jury of Awards at the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. And he designed the award medal which was given to the bravest cowboy in the annual Salinas Rodeo.

Mora also produced numerous distinctive posters, such as one showing the evolution of the workhorse in the west. And he drew animated maps (of California; of Yosemite; of the Monterey Peninsula; of Carmel-by-the-Sea, etc.); collectors’ items now, these delightful studies are bright and lively, studded with seemingly innumerable tiny cartoon characters commemorating events or places.

With more leisure time in the latter half of his life, Jo Mora illustrated books which are much appreciated by California history buffs, wonderful books about “the California vaqueros, that hearty breed of missionary-trained horsemen” he so admired. In 1926 Mora illustrated Tirey L. Ford’s classic Dawn and the Dons, the Romance of Monterey. In 1933 a Mora family cruise was immortalized in the humorous A Log of the Pacific Main which Jo wrote and illustrated, as he did Trail Dust and Saddle Leather in 1946. Californios was published in 1949 after his death.

Jo Mora passed away on October 10, 1947. Today we heartily agree with a remark he once made, “I’m mighty glad I knew the tag-end of the old west before it really got completely manicured and marcelled, and cowtowns grew into big cities.”