The Monterey History and Art Association

From its founding in 1931, the Monterey History & Art Association’s primary mission has been to help preserve the irreplaceable reminders of Monterey’s colorful heritage. 

Over the past seven decades, the Association has worked closely with the City of Monterey, the California Department of Parks and Recreation, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and other agencies. As a result, more old adobes have been preserved and restored in Monterey than anywhere else in California.

The Association instituted Monterey’s historic landmark program and created the Path of History which guides visitors to historic sites in old Monterey. It possesses extensive collections of furnishings, paintings, photographs, costumes, books, manuscripts, and other artifacts.

The Jo Mora Collection

Few artistic legacies are more interesting than that of Joseph Jacinto Mora (1876−1947). 

Mora’s artistic gifts range over a wide variety of mediums, including drawing, painting, illustration, cartooning, sculpture, photography, map-making, and writing, their diversity being an amazing accomplishment for one person. 

Mora was born in Uruguay on October 22, 1876, moved to the eastern United States when he was a young child, and then, after attending art school and working as an illustrator and cartoonist in the Boston area, spent the rest of his adult life living and working in the western United States, with the last 27 years in Carmel and Pebble Beach, California.

In 1920, Mora moved to Carmel from the San Francisco Bay Area to work on what was to become his masterpiece – the Father Serra Cenotaph, in the Jo Mora Memorial Chapel at the Mission San Carlos Borromeo del Río Carmelo. Carmel Mission priest Ramon Mestres commissioned Mora to create the bronze and travertine memorial, along with the cross and altar, that were dedicated on October 12, 1924.

Mora is probably best known publicly for the series of maps – or cartes, as he referred to them – that he created. These historically accurate, humorous, and collectable prints have entertained viewers for years. His homage to Carmel, the Carmel-By-The-Sea carte, was printed in 1942 and highlights much of the colorful history of the town.

An extensive collection of Jo Mora’s art and papers now resides within the holdings of the Monterey History and Art Association. Excellent examples of this collection can be viewed at the MHAA’s historic adobe Casa Serrano in Monterey, California.