An early San Antonio artist, she was born in 1909 in Mexico City. Santa Duran painted San Antonio scenes and the Texas Hill Country for seventy years.

Her father was the Italian sculptor Victorio Mombelli, who had come to Mexico City to help complete work on the large public sculpture The Angel Of Independence. After her mother remarried in 1919, she was adopted by her stepfather, her full name being Santa Maria de los Reyes Gina Mombelli Dura.

She displayed talent fro drawing early in life and began studying painting with Jose Arpa in 1924, while Arpa's nephew Xavier Gonzalez became her tutor in drawing. She was a student of Arpa's until he returned to Spain, in the mid 1930s. Santa Dura...