Friends Under the Tree

Mirka Mora was an iconic figure in Melbourne’s restaurant and bohemian arts scene from the 1950s until her recent death in 2018. Her popular restaurant Tolarno in the bayside suburb of St Kilda was a regular haunt for Spiegelworld’s Impresario Extraordinaire Ross Mollison.

Mirka was born in Paris in 1928 to Jewish parents. After being arrested in 1942,her father managed to arrange her release from a concentration camp just before she and her mother were due to be deported to Auschwitz. Evading arrest by hiding in French forests until the end of the war, Mirka and her husband migrated to Australia in 1951 and settled in Melbourne. Over the years they owned and operated several significant Melbourne cafes which became focal points for the city’s bohemian subculture.

On loan from Spiegelworld Impresario Extraordinaire’s private collection.

More ArtWork

  • Brian Duffy

    Anarchist, painter, atheist, fashion illustrator, film producer, advertising director, photographer – Brian Duffy (1933-2010) was a blizzard of talent and contradictions. Fast-talking and controversial, he was also something of an enigma. Those involved in the media during the 1960s and 70s remember him as a cutting-edge fashion photographer, equal in stature to Terence Donovan and […]

    Read More
  • Moshpit

    Sam Ganados uses vibrant color palettes and intimate compositions to explore themes of gender, sexuality, and nonconformity. Their practice often has a feminine perspective and reflects on personal experiences, distorted memories, and inner conflicts. Working mainly with painting, their subjects are rendered with bright gradients connecting colors with fluidity and transitional states of being.

    Read More