The son of a Spanish / Mora's Catalan ancestry / born sculptor, Luis Mora spent his early years in South America. After the family settled in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, around 1880, Mora received his secondary school education at Manning's seminary. In 1887, Mora enrolled in the School of the Museum of Fine Art in Boston where he would remain for two years. He studied under Eugene Benson and Edmund Charles Tarbell. Following his return to Perth Amboy, Mora entered H. Siddons Mowbray's class at the Art Students' League, in New York. Mora became friendly with Kenyon Cox, William Merritt Chase and Frank Du Mond during his three years at the League. During the 1890s, Mora executed commercial illustrations for publications including Harper's Weekly.
In 1895, Mora made his first of numerous trips to France, Spain and England to study the Old Masters. During this early period, Velasquez, Goya and El Greco were primary influences on Mora's portraits and figure compositions.
During several years around the end of the century, Mora taught at Chase's New York School of Art. During 1906-07, 1913-14 and in the summer of 1934, Mora was an instructor in life drawing, illustration and composition at the New York Art Students' League. He also served as vice president of the organization for a brief period.
Mora's received his first major mural commission, a decorative panel for the public library in Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1900. His reputation was established and numerous commissions followed, among them the Missouri state building at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904, the Orpheum theater in Los Angeles in 1911, as well as a series of mural for the Town Hall Club, New York, in 1938, and a mural for one of the buildings at the New York World's Fair, 1939-40.
Additionally, Mora was quite successful as a portraitist. The industrialist Andrew Carnegie and President Warren Harding were among his sitters. He was also known for his watercolors and etchings.
