Josep Tapiró i Baró (17 February 1836, Reus – 4 October 1913, Tangier) was a Spanish painter, best known for his watercolor portraits from Morocco.

[1] In 1853, he and his fellow student, Marià Fortuny, were given the opportunity to exhibit at a showing held by the Casino de Reus.

Later that year, he and Fortuny enrolled at the Escola de la Llotja, where he studied with Claudi Lorenzale, a painter associated with the German Nazarene movement, among others.

Rather than remain in Spain, his memories of Tangier led him to join a diplomatic mission on its way to meet with Sultan Hassan I in 1876.

[1] Although he frequently travelled to exhibitions (as far afield as Saint Petersburg and New York) and spent the summers with his family in Reus, he would live in Tangier for the rest of his life.

The situation was aggravated by a sharp decrease in the number of foreign visitors and tourists; caused by the rebellion of Bou Hmara and the Perdicaris incident.

In 1907, he and his wife rented a house in Madrid in a last ditch effort to promote his work at an exhibition of the Círculo de Bellas Artes.