Georges Mora

Georges Mora (26 June 1913 – 7 June 1992) was a German-born Australian entrepreneur, art dealer, patron, connoisseur and restaurateur. Early life Mora was born Gunter Morawski on 26 June 1913 in Leipzig, Germany, of Jewish Polish heritage. As a young medical student Mora became a member of a communist cell and fled Germany to Paris in 1930. 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 short time. He was active in the French Resistance in World War II, using the alias Georges Morand. After the War, Georges worked as a patent dealer and became the director of a Jewish rehabilitation home for children run by Œuvre de secours aux enfants (OSE) in Paris. Later In 1947 he married Parisian artist and fellow Jewish refugee Mirka Zelik, becoming a French citizen. New York and Melbourne In 1949, after the birth of Georges' and Mirka's first son Philippe Mora (a filmmaker), they joined his family in New York, then in July 1951 moved on to McKinnon, Melbourne where he adopted the name Georges Mora. With characteristic adaptability he took up management of a matzo factory. Seeking more romantic quarters Georges and Mirka moved into Grosvenor Chambers (Ola Cohn's former studio) at 9 Collins Street Melbourne (the so called 'Paris End'). Sons William Mora, born in 1953, and Tiriel Mora (1958), are respectively an art dealer and an actor. Mirka Café Recognising that their hospitality and cuisine were marketable, the Moras opened a coffee lounge. Mirka Café was opened by Jean Sablon in December 1954 at 183 Exhibition Street and was the venue for the first major solo exhibition by Joy Hester. It was the first in Melbourne where patrons could eat at tables on the pavement in the Parisian style and the café became the watering-hole of Melbourne's avant-garde. Patrons ate from Expressionist crockery by Arthur Boyd and John Perceval, were seated on surrealist furniture, and surrounded by murals and sculptures by Clifford Last, Ian Sime and Julius Kane.