Mirka Mora
| Mirka Mora | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Mirka Madeleine Zelik 18 March 1928 Paris, France |
| Nationality | French, Australian |
| Education | Self-taught and Heide artist |
| Known for | Painting, Sculpture, Mosaics |
| Awards | Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres |
| Website | Mirka Mora |
Mirka Madeline Mora (born 18 March 1928) is a prominent French-born Australian visual artist who has contributed significantly to the development of contemporary art in Australia. Her mediums include painting, sculpture and mosaics.
Mora was born in Paris, to a Lithuanian Jewish father, Leon Zelik, and a Romanian Jewish mother, Celia 'Suzanne' Gelbein. She was arrested in 1942 during the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup (Rafle du Vel' d'Hiv). Her father, Leon, managed to arrange for her release from the concentration camp at Pithiviers (Loiret) before Mora and her mother, Celia, were scheduled to be deported to Auschwitz. The family evaded arrest and deportation from 1942 to 1945 by hiding in the forests of France. After the war, Mora met a wartime resistance fighter Georges Mora in Paris at the age of 17. They married in 1947. In an interview in 2004, Mora said:
"I really wanted to make love to him, because I was very humiliated that he didn't because I was 17, and he said, "I know that you are not happy but we have to wait till we get married." "Ah! Married?" So I agreed to get married to lose my virginity. That's true."
Having survived the Holocaust, Mora and her husband migrated to Australia in 1951 and settled in Melbourne, where they quickly became key figures on the Melbourne cultural scene. Georges became an influential art dealer, and in 1967 he founded one of the first commercial art galleries in Melbourne, the Tolarno Galleries.
The Mora family also owned and operated three of Melbourne's most famous cafés. The Mirka Café was opened in December 1954 at 183 Exhibition Street and was the venue for the first major solo exhibition by Joy Hester. It was followed by the Café Balzac at 62 Wellington Parade, East Melbourne and then by the Tolarno in Fitzroy Street in St Kilda, which opened in 1966. All three were focal points for Melbourne's bohemian subculture. As Mora's son Philippe recalls, "my parents literally fed artists at our home and in our restaurants". In a 2004 interview Mora stated:
...
Wikipedia