Mela Muter is the pseudonym used by Maria Melania Mutermilch (April 26, 1876 – May 14, 1967), the first professional Jewish painter in Poland. She lived most of her life in France.
The daughter of Fabian Klingsland, a wealthy Jewish merchant, she was born Maria Melania Kingsland in Warsaw; her brother Zygmunt Klingsland was a Polish diplomat and literature critic. She completed high school in 1892, going on to study music and drawing and then attended the School of Drawing and Painting for Women run by Miłosz Kotarbiński (pl). In 1899, she married Michał Mutermilch in Warsaw; the couple had one son. They moved to Paris in 1901. Muter continued her studies at the Académie Colarossi and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. In 1902, she began exhibiting her work at the Paris Salon. She took part in exhibitions at the Salon des Indépendants, the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, the Salon des Tuileries and the Salon des Femmes Artistes Modernes (fr), as well as exhibiting her work in Poland. Muter was a popular portrait painter in Paris. She also contributed illustrations to the French magazine Clarté (fr). Muter was one of the first members of the group of artists known as the School of Paris.
An affair with French writer Raymond Lefebvre led to her divorce from her husband. Lefebvre died in 1920. She became interested in Christianity and was baptized in 1923. Her son died in December 1924 which caused her to become deeply depressed. She was also saddened by the death of her friend Rainer Maria Rilke. Muter became a French citizen in 1927. She became a member of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and the Société des Femmes Artistes Modernes. During the German occupation of France during World War II, Muter hid in the south of France. For a time, she was unable to paint due to progressive loss of sight. A retrospective of her work was presented in Paris in 1953. She had cataract surgery in 1965, returned to painting and presented works in Cologne, Paris and New York City.
Muter died in her studio in Paris at the age of 91. Muter was buried in the Cimetière parisien de Bagneux.
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