Mirka Mora (1928-1918) Melbourne based artist, born in France, has died aged 90.
Mirka was born in Paris on March 18, 1928 to a Lithuanian father, Leon Zelik, and a Romanian mother, Celia Gelbein. In France Mirka attended theatre school with Marcel Marceau. Amazingly the two were reunited in 2003 when Marcel Marceau delivered to Mirka the honour of 'Officier des Arts et des Lettres'.
The second world war engulfed Mirka and her family, they were placed in a concentration camp but miraculously she escaped Auschwitz.
Above: Georges Mora
In 1947 Mirka married Georges Mora (June 26, 1913 – June 7, 1992) a German Jew born in Leipzig. Georges was a medical student Georges who fled Germany for Paris in 1930. However when the Spanish Civil War broke out, Georges left Paris to join the cause, after a plane crash he was a prisoner of war for a time, before joining the French resistance.
Their first son Phillippe was born in 1949 and together they emigrated first to New York and then onto Melbourne, Australia in 1951. William Mora was born in 1953 and Tiriel Mora was born in 1958.
In Melbourne this young family found a vibrant, accepting society full of optimism and opportunity, Georges at first became manager of a flatbread factory before opening a café in 1954; 'The Mirka Café' quickly became three cafés, and then came the Balzac Restaurant. The hospitality and warmth of this young couple, meant they became key to Melbourne's bohemian subculture. Georges also became an influential art dealer and in 1967 he founded the Tolarno Galleries, the first commercial art gallery in Melbourne. Meanwhile Mirka's career as an artist thrived, she was commissioned to create many murals whilst enjoying her own path as an artist creating soft sculptural dolls and paintings.
Above: Charcoal drawing (1963) Below: Reflections on Love
Mirka's art was not confined to one genre, scale or medium, she fluidly moved between murals, sculpture, painting, textiles and mosaic. The common thread was colour, exuberance and love with an iconography gained from a love of classical mythology.
In 1999-2000 there was a retrospective of her work at Heide Museum of Art, celebrating 50 years of creative output. She had over 35 solo shows during her lifetime and only two years ago her work was translated into dress fabric by German fashion brand Gorman. Her mural at St Kilda's Tolarno Hotel has heritage status as do many other of her public works in Melbourne.
Below: 'Chatter In The Garden' 2011
“I think everything is funny. It’s so funny that we have to die. It’s cruel, but it’s terribly funny. You have all these dreams and you’ve got to leave everything. In my grave I’ll take some brushes and some paint. You never know!” - Mirka Mora
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