For Anna Mortley, art, home and family have always been closely intertwined.  Now Director of William Mora Galleries and custodian of the Mirka Mora Estate, Anna’s world is filled with colour, creativity, curious objects and plenty of stories.

This week on our Home Life Series, we’re heading to Richmond to meet Anna and step inside a very special family setup. With the gallery next door to Anna’s home and Mirka’s studio just beside that, art, family and everyday life have always existed side by side.

Come inside as Anna talks art, collecting, colour, light and making a home your own, with a little Mirka magic woven through it all.

Hey Anna, thank you so much for having us in Richmond. For those who may not know, can you tell us about your connection to Mirka Mora and William Mora Galleries, and how you came to work alongside your husband in the gallery?

Thank you so much in return. It was an absolute pleasure having you in Richmond!

It really is a family affair. William was my husband, and the nature of our relationship was that we loved doing everything together, so one thing naturally led to another. Coming from an artistic background myself, it felt very natural for us to start working together at the gallery quite early in our relationship.

Mirka, my mother-in-law, lived right next door, so there was always this wonderful connection between family, art, home and the gallery. We have a daughter, Carlotta, who is now 15, and the gallery is actually adjacent to our home, which is next door to Mirka’s studio. So, in a way, one space naturally leads into another!

I am William’s second wife, and William was my second husband. Before we were together, William’s first family lived upstairs and the gallery was almost twice the size it is today. When William and I got together, we transformed part of that gallery space into our apartment, which we absolutely love.

William’s older children, Fred and Lily, also have beautiful families of their own, and they now run their own businesses. So the gallery really has been woven through all of our lives in one way or another. It’s a very special family story, and I feel incredibly fortunate to be part of it.

You’re now Director of the gallery and also care for Mirka’s Estate. What does that role look like day to day, and what does it mean to be the custodian of such an important creative legacy? 

William and I worked together in the gallery for more than a decade, so when he passed away in 2023, it felt natural to continue the work we had been doing together. Of course, stepping into this role carries a great sense of responsibility. There is William’s legacy to honour, as well as Mirka’s, and a remarkable history that has been built over many decades.

I think the key is to pace yourself and take one thing at a time. William was very good at that. He understood the importance of allowing time for reflection, and I try to carry that with me in the way I work.

The gallery turns 40 next year, so there is a lot of history to honour. I often think about the art scene of the 1980s and the important role William played in it, including his groundbreaking exhibitions with Indigenous artists in the 1990s. He also contributed enormously to building and preserving the legacy of his mother, Mirka.

Day to day, the role is incredibly varied. There are always different kinds of work to attend to — from answering questions about the provenance and history of artworks, to caring for the Estate, working with artists, preparing exhibitions and simply keeping the gallery moving.

Today, William Mora Galleries represents a wonderful group of contemporary artists, while also representing the Estate of Mirka Mora. We continue to present Mirka’s work in exhibitions each year, keeping her work and ideas alive for new audiences.

Our next exhibition is Paper #2, bringing together seven artists, including three who have never exhibited with William Mora Galleries before. For me, that balance between honouring the history of the gallery and continuing to introduce new artists and new ideas is very important. It allows the legacy to remain alive rather than simply looking backwards.

After spending years cataloguing and caring for the Estate, have you discovered any unexpected artworks or stories that have changed the way you see Mirka and her creative world? 

After so many years of being immersed in the Estate of Mirka Mora, I still feel incredibly privileged to be able to spend time with all of these works. With Mirka, there are always surprises. Just when you think you know her work, something appears that reminds you that you really don’t — and that is part of the magic.

Mirka used to say, “Oh, you will have a lot of fun when I am gone!” She knew exactly what she was doing. She would hide drawings and little pieces of her creativity inside books, drawers and all sorts of unexpected places, so there are always discoveries to be made.

I often think of Mirka’s incredible career of 70 years as an artist. I think Mirka was larger than life, and that is reflected in her work. You have to expect the unexpected with Mirka. The surprises continue to reveal themselves, and I feel very fortunate to get to see them.

There are some things I won’t reveal because Mirka would not have liked that at all. I think she would have enjoyed keeping a little mystery around her work — and perhaps that is part of her legacy too.

Is there a particular piece, object or part of the Estate that holds a special story for you?

This is almost impossible to answer! I think what moves me most, more than any particular piece or object, is the process of Mirka’s work and any glimpse into her thinking. My focus changes quite often because there are so many different aspects to her practice. It’s almost like a dance — you move from one period or idea to another, and something new catches your attention.

At the moment, I am particularly drawn to the shift in Mirka’s drawing between the late 1950s and the late 1960s. I cannot stop wondering what it must have been like for Mirka and Georges to migrate from Paris to Melbourne in 1951, as they fled the postwar tensions in Europe. During the 1960s, you can really see Mirka beginning to find her own language, and her confidence as an artist. There is such a wonderful sense of freedom in the work.

Looking through that period of her work is a little like opening Pandora’s box. Every time you look, another door seems to open, revealing something unexpected about Mirka, her imagination and the way she was thinking. That, for me, is what makes living with her Estate such an extraordinary experience.

What does it mean to you to keep Mirka’s work and world present for people today?

Mirka’s work is timeless and universal. It appeals to all types of personalities . I think that is where the strength of her oeuvre lies. The love people have for Mirka is so palpable and strong. It is truly special, and it shapes the way I think about my role in caring for her work and keeping her world present.

People who love Mirka often come to the gallery and share stories about their different encounters with her. I find that incredibly moving. With Mirka, the personality feeds into the art, and the art feeds back into the personality. They are inseparable.

William used to say, “Mirka belongs to everybody,” and I believe that to be true. I feel a responsibility to make her work as accessible as possible to the public, and also to keep looking at it with fresh eyes. I believe some of Mirka’s works have been overlooked, and it is important to bring those works out and give people the opportunity to discover them for themselves.

We present an exhibition of Mirka’s work at least once a year, and we try to continually rotate the works and bring out pieces that haven’t been seen for some time. It is important to me that the Estate doesn’t feel static, but continues to reveal different sides of Mirka and her extraordinary body of work.

I also couldn’t do this alone. Eleni Papavasiliou has been working with us since 2023, rehousing and archiving the works. William and I first met Eleni when she curated Mirka at the Jewish Museum of Australia in 2021, and it has been wonderful to have her expertise and care within the Estate.

Kaitlin Pignataro is our gallery manager and helps enormously with the promotion and presentation of Mirka’s work. I am incredibly grateful to both Eleni and Kaitlin. They are an essential part of keeping Mirka’s world alive and allowing it to continue to reach people.

Mirka lived and worked in the studio for the last two decades of her life. What does it feel like to walk into that space today, and what does it reveal about the way she chose to live and create? 

Mirka’s studio in Richmond is a magical place. When you walk into it today, you can still get a real sense of how she lived and worked, and somehow her presence feels very close.

The northern light is particularly beautiful — it is a painter’s delight. You can imagine Mirka there in the morning, working with the natural light coming in, or late at night, painting gouache on paper while listening to the radio. There is something very intimate about imagining those moments.

The studio also reveals something about the way Mirka lived: surrounded by her work, her ideas and the things that inspired her. It was not simply a workplace; it was very much part of her world.

There is still a certain je ne sais quoi about Mirka in that space. Her spirit feels very much alive there. You can’t quite explain it, but you feel it when you walk in — and I think that is one of the magical things about the studio.

You grew up in Paris and came to Melbourne with a background in visual, performing arts and dance. How has your own creative upbringing and relationship with art shaped the way you live in and think about your space? 

I went to Paris with my mother in 1981 when I was eight years old and lived there until 2013. My first job was in a contemporary art gallery near the Bastille for 5 years, and from there I went on to work as a dancer and choreographer in Paris for 20 years.

I think that background has had a very strong influence on the way I experience space. Through dance, I became very conscious of space, light, geometry and movement — and I still see the world through those ideas. I find that every angle from which you look at something can change its story, a little like looking at a painting. The experience is never quite the same twice.

I also like the space I live in to be flexible and interchangeable. I enjoy moving things around, changing the way objects relate to one another and allowing the space to evolve. Perhaps that comes from dance too — the idea that space is never completely static, but is always responding to movement, light and the people within it.

For me, art and space are very connected. I like to feel that the things around me have room to breathe, change and reveal themselves in different ways.

Has being immersed in Mirka’s world changed your own relationship with collecting? What kinds of objects or pieces do you find yourself drawn to?

I’m sure that being immersed in Mirka’s world has influenced what I notice and what I’m drawn to. Her works, particularly her works on paper, are full of scenes, characters and stories. I think about that often. I like the idea that the things around us can have their own little narratives.

I also tend to collect little things when I travel—souvenirs, cups, jewellery, bags, cards and other small objects that catch my eye. These little trinkets carry stories that are forever changing.

In that sense, perhaps Mirka has influenced me more than I realise. She had such an extraordinary ability to surround herself with things that sparked her imagination, I think I have a little of that instinct too.

How do you like to live with art at home? Do you think about how pieces are displayed, or do you prefer them to find their place organically?

Sometimes I know exactly where I think a piece should go, but other times I need to live with it for a while. I might move it around, look at it from different angles and see how it responds to the space before I know where it belongs.

I think it is a little like meeting someone new — sometimes you have an immediate connection, and other times the relationship develops slowly. I like allowing the artwork to find its own place organically.

For me, art at home is not static. The light changes, the way you move through a room changes, and suddenly you see a piece differently. I enjoy that sense of discovery and allowing the space to evolve around the works.

What role does colour play in your home, and has Mirka’s approach to colour influenced the way you use it?

I think colour carries a lot of energy and movement. Like everyone, I am naturally drawn to certain colours more than others, and that changes over time and sometimes with the seasons. I like that colour can shift your feeling or the atmosphere of a space without you necessarily being conscious of it.

Mirka had an incredible sense of colour. I think she was a true master in that respect. What I find particularly extraordinary is that she knew how to convey both very subtle and very strong emotions through colour. She could make colour feel incredibly joyful, but also quiet, mysterious or deeply emotional.

I don’t think Mirka has necessarily influenced the way I use colour, but she certainly taught me to see it differently. Being around her work has made me much more aware of what colour can do and how powerful it can be. I think that is one of the great gifts of living so closely with her work.

Are there any rituals, objects or small details that make your house feel like home?

I love playing with the small objects in our home and with the light. I move things around, change little arrangements and notice how they look at different times of the day.

I think each space has many interiors within it, even if it is just one room. The light changes, the objects change, and the way you experience the room changes with them. I like that sense of movement and discovery.

For me, making a home is not about everything being perfectly placed. It is about allowing the space to evolve and letting those small details create a feeling of warmth, memory and personality.