Mildred Newell Pommer (nee Newell) painter, designer, draftsman, and printmaker, was born in Sibley, Iowa on May 29, 1893. She studied at the Chouinard and Otis Art Institutes in Los Angeles and worked as a costume designer at Paramount Studios. Newell married fellow artist Julius Pommer in 1929 and they settled in San Francisco, California. She then continued her studies at the California School of Fine Art, as well as with Beniamino Bufano.

Mildred Newell Pommer was a member of the San Francisco Women Artists and the Contemporary Handweavers of California. She was also a member of and exhibited with the San Francisco Art Association in 1935, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1942, and 1946. In 1939 her graphite drawing "Granite Rocks" was awarded a purchase prize and is illustrated in the catalogue. The U.S. General Services Administration's book WPA Artwork in Non-Federal Repositories lists the following three titles for lithographs produced by Pommer under the WPA Federal Art Project: Gage Building, Mokelumne Hill; Jumping Frog Story Angels Camp; and Sturges Building Mokolumne Hill.

Pommer was included in exhibitions at the Oakland Art Gallery (now the Oakland Museum of California) in 1932 and at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1952. Her work is represented in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the GSA book lists her works as being in the WPA holdings of the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of Arts, University of Kentucky Art Museum, Portland Art Museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Mildred Newell Pommer died in San Francisco, California on June 3, 1963.