Her real name is Maria-Melania Kingsland and her friends knew her as Mela Muter, was a polonaise painter, that became a French citizen in 1902. She was born in Varsovia in a jewish, cultured and rich family, and she lived in the large part of her life in Paris with her husband Michel Mutermilch (writer and art critic), where she was educated as a painter in the Colarossi Academy. She took part of a artists community in Paris and participated actively in the cultural and artistic part of the city. It was said that she painted like a man, as her art normally distanced from the fineness that women from the twenties and thirties were supposed to paint. She painted with realism, brightness and vibrant, and she absorbed the european postimpressionist trends.

She was closely linked to Catalunya, both Barcelona, where she opened up a new space for art expositions called Josep Dalmau, at the Portaferrissa Street, where the following year she showed a collective polonaise artists exposition; and Girona, where she arrived for the first time in 1914. She moved into the old part of the city, where she lived with her friend and painter Pere Farró. She became really popular in the artistic circles and lots of artists surrounded her, with the Norat Cafe in la Rambla as a reference point for the get togethers, among which there was Xavier Montsalvatge Iglésias, Manolo Hugué and Celso Lagar. It was dissolved when the First World War started.

During the Second World War she lived in Avignon, but her sight problems stopped her production. The war and the divorce left her in a precarious situation, alone, troubled her because of the fact that she was jewish, she had participated in the socialist cause, and she also she didn’t have any connection with her origins. When she died she left part of his work to a NGO.

During her career, Mela painted the old part of Girona, the Sant Daniel Valley and some towns from the surroundings, apart from lots of figures and portraits. She won a gold medal at “l'Exposition Universelle de París” in 1937 and exhibited around the world. There are some works of her in the Girona Art Museum.