Pacific Grove gets an infusion of mural paintings by Jo Mora.

Joseph “Jo” Jacinto Mora, a rugged artist of the American West, was born to intellectual parents in Uruguay. In 1880 the family moved to New York and New Jersey, and as an adult Mora found work as an illustrator in Boston. But his wanderlust and his talent were too big for newspaper comics.

He headed west. He landed in California, lived on a ranch, and traveled the Mission Trail on a horse. He moved to Arizona and lived with Hopis and Navajos for two years. He relocated his own family to San Jose, California, and served on the jury for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition.

He created a sprawling body of work as he went, mostly in the Western mode, earning him the moniker “Renaissance Man of the West”: sculptures, photographs, drawings, posters, maps, book covers, murals, children’s books. After he relocated to Carmel in 1921, he installed a sculpture and cenotaph at Carmel Mission, and a Works Progress Administration sculpture at King City High, and joined the Carmel Art Association.

Trotter Galleries in Pacific Grove adds to the Mora presence in Monterey County with the recent acquisition of seven of his so-called “Fable” mural paintings – commissioned for the Fable Restaurant in San Francisco’s Drake-Wiltshire Hotel during the Depression.

“They were very much intended to lift the spirits and add levity,” Trotter Galleries co-owner Terry Trotter says.

They are cheerful pieces, populated by anthropomorphic animals dressed in authentic period clothes and partying.

One painting focuses on a pair of swinging mountain lion gals – one playing piano, the other singing – both wearing floral dresses and heels. A jackrabbit in blue overalls sits at a table, a slingshot jutting out of the back pocket. There’s a raccoon dressed as a trapper, a spotted stallion as a Californio, a bull steer in the guise of a vaquero, a Cal State bear – all archetypes from California history.

The colors are so vivid that even after 80 years the paint still looks wet.

Peter Hiller, curator of the Jo Mora Trust, says that he and other Mora admirers had been searching a long time for the murals. They thought there were four such murals; Trotter found seven.

“It brought tears to my eyes,” Hiller says about seeing them at the gallery. “I was overwhelmed. They are such a significant suite of his work. And to think they were lost to history for so many years.”

The murals, in person, are commanding and delightful. And Trotter has supplemented them with artifacts, books and pictorial cartes – just a hint of the prolific body of work from this seminal Western artist who was born in another country but found his home in this one.

TROTTER GALLERIES is open noon-5pm Thu-Sat and by appointment or chance at 301 Forest Ave., Pacific Grove. 649-3246, www.TrotterGalleries.com