"Pancho" and Ana Borbora.
Can you help us find our old friends Francisco Borbora was born in 1924 in California. When his mother died,Francisco's father took the family back to Los Mochis in the Mexican stateof Sinaloa. Though he had an early flair for sketching his first studywas in medicine at the Institutio de Ciencias in Guadalajara. Following his intuition he went as an art advisor for a RomanCatholic mission in Beijing. In 1960 he was sent to Taichung, in Taiwan,where he created his first mosaic mural.
Ana and Pancho, 1974
Ana and Pancho on a 1974 holiday in Macau. Behind them is the facadeof the Church of St. Paul. This church was designed by a Portuguese priestand built by Japanese Catholics from Nagasaki. It was completed in 1637. It wasdestroyed by fire in 1835 but the facade with a foundation stone that reads "1602"still stands today. By a fortuitous accident Borbora met his wife-to-be in a classroom inTaichung. One day when he returned to his workshop the studio floor wascovered with fragments of his tiles. He took his complaint straight tothe headmaster. The children hadn't meant any mischief. "They'd just runthrough the studio without thinking," he told me. The headmaster had himcome before the class so they could make their apology to him. There, hiseyes fell on the teacher, a young Cantonese beauty by the name of Ana Liang.It was love at first sight, though some years were to pass before the twowere married.
His workshop was on one of the back lots of theSisters of the Poor near the old Clear Water Bay road. In 1962, Borbora left Taiwan to travel about Southeast Asia: ten monthsin Japan, a teaching stint in the Philippines, and finally Hong Kong, wherehe decided to stay. He rented a room in Tsimshatsui, hired an assistantand began working. He had not forgotten Ana. They corresponded for more than threeyears before her family, who had been opposed to the marriage, relentedand gave it their blessing. They were married in Hong Kong in 1965. Ana,a social worker, spent seven years with Project Concern, the American medicaland educational relief program for needy children. In his spare time, Borbora taught extramural classes in Spanishat the University of Hong Kong. Though robust in appearance, FranciscoBorbora has a mile heart condition, and suffers intermittent pain froma spinal injury dating from a childhood accident. Bare-brested mermaids, conceived by Borboa, frolic beneath thesurface of Hong Kong millionaire Stanley Ho's residential pool. A mosaicguru of Borbora's dominates the prayer room in the mansion of the wealthyHarilela family on Waterloo Road. Film magnate Run Run Shaw commissioneda 14-by-14-foot mosaic for a stairwell in his palatial home on the Shawstudio grounds. Pancho let the rich pay, while he gave some of his bestart work to the churches and schools without a fee.
Perhaps the work more people have seen is the one that decorates thelobby of Macau's Lisboa Hotel. The vast mosaic on the lobby's dome covers3,500 square feet and shows the Portuguese galleons sailing toward Macau.He was less than pleased when the hotel installed a huge chandelier inthe middle, ruining the total effect. In 1976, one of the last times I saw Ana and Pancho he was thinkingof returning to Mexico. "In Mexico," he said, "the mosaic artist is heldin the highest esteem. Our country has produced some of the most famousmosaicists in the world. Men like Orozco, Rivera, Siqueiros, and Tamayo."Ana looked forward to living in Mexico. She said, "The people there areso giving, so warm. That country has a fragrance. Taiwan I love too, butHong Kong never has been and never could be my kind of place." Pancho agreed with Ana, for his creative spirit seemed to be dictatinga journey back to his roots. Sad to say my wife and I have lost touch withthis special couple of friends. Any information on this fine man and artistwill be most appreciated. Please contact Britt Towery at bet@laotao.org or telephone (254) 753-6566. Click here to send e-mail to BrittTowery. Some of my photos of his work appeared in Asia's largest Sunday magazine,The Asia Magazine, August 25, 1974, titled "Asia's Mexican Mosaicist."
This "dancing lion" work of art is in a place of honor in the Toweryhome.
This huge mural was made with Italian mosaic tiles and depicts Confucius and Christ and their disciples. It is located on College Road (Shuyuan Dao) just off Boundary Street (Jiexian Jie) in Kowloon, Hong Kong. It is at least 30 years old. 
Borbora's visit Towery's daughter Tish,
#12, York Road, Kowloon Tong, the then British colony of Hong Kong(1974)
Towery's daughter Linda in historic Macau, May, 1975. Macau (spelledMacao in English) is Asia's oldest European settlement. At the end of 1999this Portuguese enclave will re-unite with China. This picture taken nearthe Pui Ching Baptist Middle School. More of Borbora's art work will soon appear here
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