Jose Maria Mora

Jose Maria Mora

Dates 1849 - after 1893, active New York 1870s - 1890s

Roles Photographer

Nationality American

Born Cuba

Beginning in the 1870s, Cuban-born Jose Maria Mora worked in New York, where he was known for his portraits of the great actors and actresses of the stage. Mora sold these portraits in the popular and inexpensive cabinet card format, helping create the clamor each year for new portraits of different actresses. Woodcut engravings after his photographs frequently graced the pages of the Illustrated London News and Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, and the Photographic Times dubbed him as first-rate, "an artist of the 'first water." In addition to stage celebrities, Mora photographed a wide array from visiting royalty to "Italian slaves rescued by the Soc[iety] for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children" at his New York gallery, which he closed around 1893.

"Jose Maria Mora." The J. Paul Getty Museum. Retrieved July 23, 2019 from http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/1660/jose-maria-mora-american-1849-after-1893-active-new-york-1870s-1890s/ N.C.