Kent Steinhardt was born in the town of Lemberg, Poland (currently Lvov, Ukraine), which was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The artist was raised in her father’s hometown, Saaz, Bohemia (currently, Zatec, Czechoslovakian Republic), in the hops-growing region west of Prague.
As a teenager, she attended Kunstgewerbeschule (Arts and Crafts School) in Vienna, Austria.
In the summer of 1921, in nearby Marienbad (currently Marianski Lasne, Czechoslovakian Republic), the Heller family encountered a Bavarian merchant, Fritz Steinhardt, who profoundly altered the lives of the Heller family. By the end of World World War II, the artist returned to painting and etching. The couple moved to Inglewood, California in 1946.
Mela manufactured handmade ceramic tableware under the brand Kent Handmade, which she initially glazed and fired in the Kent’s garage in Inglewood.
From 1948 until her death, Kent Steinhardt owned and operated the Home Decorators Hobby Shop on Robertson Boulevard in Los Los Angeles She produced and taught ceramics, painting, sewing, and crafts.
Kent Steinhardt’s compositions, portraits and landscapes blend European Expressionism with an émigré’s troubled impressions of her new American life. Much of the work Kent Steinhardt created in her final years depict complex existential themes, reminiscent of the work of post-World War 1 Expressionists Käthe Kollwitz, James Ensor, Max Beckmann, and George Grosz.
Melanie Kent Steinhardt died due to carbon monoxide poisoning in her Robertson Boulevard shop in January 1952.
She was 52 years old. Exhibition A retrospective of the artist’s work was presented at California State University Sonoma in 2006.
