Dora Kallmus, Model 119 Winter Season 1934, Silver Gelatin Print

Details

Description

Dora Philippine Kallmus (1881-1963)
aka Madame d'Ora

"Model 119 - Saison Hiver 1934"

Original Vintage Gelatin Silver Print
… Read more Dora Philippine Kallmus (1881-1963)
aka Madame d'Ora

"Model 119 - Saison Hiver 1934"

Original Vintage Gelatin Silver Print
signed in the negative "d'Ora - Paris"

Year: 1934

Size: 226 x 153 mm

On the reverse:
stamp of Peter Dressler Collection
archive number: 42253 (in pencil)

Provenance:
Peter Dressler Collection

Excellent Condition
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The Artist

Dora Philippine Kallmus was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1881 to a Jewish family. Her father was a lawyer. Her sister, Anna, was born in 1878 and deported in 1941 during the Holocaust. Although her mother, Malvine (née Sonnenberg), died when she was young, her family remained an important source of emotional and financial support throughout her career.

She became interested in the photography field while assisting the son of the painter Hans Makart, and in 1905 she was the first woman to be admitted to theory courses at the Graphische Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt (Graphic Training Institute). That same year she became a member of the Association of Austrian photographers. At that time she was also the first woman allowed to study theory at the Graphischen Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt, which in 1908 granted women access to other courses in photography.

In 1907, she established her own studio with Arthur Benda in Vienna called the Atelier d’Ora or Madame D'Ora-Benda. The name was based on the pseudonym "Madame d'Ora", which she used professionally. D'ora and Benda operated a summer studio from 1921 to 1926 in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic, and opened another gallery in Paris in 1925. The Karlsbad gallery allowed D'Ora to cater to the "international elite vacationers." These same clients later convinced her to open her Paris studio.

She was represented by Schostal Photo Agency (Agentur Schostal) and it was her intervention that saved the agency's owner after his arrest by the Nazis, enabling him to flee to Paris from Vienna.

Her subjects included Josephine Baker, Coco Chanel, Tamara de Lempicka, Alban Berg, Maurice Chevalier, Colette, and other dancers, actors, painters, and writers.

In 1919, D’Ora converted from Judaism to Roman Catholicism. She died on 28 October 1963. D'ora lived her final years and passed in the same house that had been forcibly sold under the Nazis before being returned to her family.

Selected Exhibitions:

1958: Portraits et recherches ou 60 ans d'art photographique , Galerie Montaigne, Paris
1971: Madame d'Ora , Paris. from the estate of a famous photographer, Landesbildstelle Hamburg
1994: To photograph was to participate . Women photographers of the Weimar Republic, Museum Folkwang , Essen
1995: Bobbed hair and Gretchen braid . The woman of the 1920s, Museum of Arts and Crafts Hamburg
2012/13: Vienna's Shooting Girls – Jewish Women Photographers from Vienna , Jewish Museum Vienna
2017: Madame d'Ora. Make me beautiful!, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg
2018: Madame d'Ora. Make me beautiful! Leopold Museum , Vienna
2019/20: The Great Break: d'Ora's Late Work , GrazMuseum , Graz
2020: Madame d'Ora , Neue Galerie New York
2022/23: Mining Photography . On the ecological footprint of image production, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, Kunsthaus Wien, Gewerbemuseum Winterthur
2023: La surface et la chair: Madame d'Ora, Vienne-Paris, 1907–1957 , Pavillon Populaire de Montpellier.
2023: Exhibition Wiki Women – Completing Knowledge Together , Museum of Arts and Crafts Hamburg.
2024: Madame d'Ora – Elegance and Eccentricity , Francisco Carolinum , Linz. This piece has an attribution mark,
I am sure that it is completely authentic and take full responsibility for any authenticity
issues arising from misattribution See less