Natalia Mela

Natalia Mela (Greek: Ναταλία Μελά; 1923–14 April 2019) was a Greek sculptor. She was the granddaughter of the fighter of the Macedonian Struggle Pavlos Melas and wife of architect Aris Konstantinidis.

Natalia Mela in the beginning worked with marble and rock, while in the end of 1960s, when she returned from Paris, where she had learned to work with oxygen, she instead focused more on metal, adopting the teaching of abstract art, which was at its heights at the period. This is the period where she abandoned the Hellenocentism of Athens and turned to Paris' Modernism. She used "ready-made" materials, which she bought from Athinas Street. She drew inspiration from subjects of nature, such as birds and animals (she has created many statues of crows, capricorns, taurs, goats and pigeons) and Greek mythology as well.

At 1951 she married the architect Aris Konstantinidis (1913-1993) with whom she had two children, Dimitri and Alexandra. For the next ten years she mainly worked for Karolos Koun's Theatre where she was responsible for the stage production.

After her graduation, at 1948, she worked for a period of time along her professor Dimitris Pikionis for a stele at the tomb of the bishop Chrysanthos and later for the Monument of the Fallen in Leontio, Nemea in the Peloponnese. She also constructed busts for Stephanos Dragoumis and Georgios Pesmazoglou, where the influence of Pikionis is obvious.

At 1942 she was enlisted at the Athens School of Fine Arts, with professors such as Kostas Dimitriadis and Mihalis Tompro. She worked at the workshop of Athanase Apartis. She then became a member of the United Panhellenic Organization of Youth, abbreviated EPON and of Greece's Communist Party (KKE). However, after the murder of Kitsos Maltezos she left both organizations.