Dora Kallmus

Dora Philippine Kallmus was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1881 to a Jewish family. Her father was a lawyer.{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aD8OAQAAIAAJ&q=Dora+Philippine+Kallmus|title = Camera|year = 1980}} 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 and her sister, Anna, were both "well-educated," spoke English and French, and played the piano. They had also traveled throughout Europe.{{Citation |last=Silverman |first=Lisa |title=Ella Zirner-Zwieback, Madame d'Ora, and Vienna's New Woman |date=2013-10-15 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt6wq397.11 |work=Fashioning Jews |pages=77–98 |publisher=Purdue University Press |doi=10.2307/j.ctt6wq397.11 |access-date=2022-03-22}}

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).{{cite book|title=Women Seeing Women, A Pictorial History of Women's Photography|publisher=NY: Norton|year=2001|page=218|author=Lothar Schirmer}} 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.{{Cite web |date=2020-07-01 |title=A Hoofer in the Slaughterhouse |url=https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/sigler-madame-d-ora |access-date=2022-03-29 |website=Tablet Magazine}}

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.{{Cite web|url=http://www.lumas.com/artist/madame_dora/|title=Madame D'ora - Pictures, Photography, Photo Art Online at LUMAS|website=LUMAS | publisher = Avenso |language=en|access-date=2017-03-12}} The Karlsbad gallery allowed D'Ora to cater to the "international elite vacationers." These same clients later convinced her to open her Paris studio.

Between 1917 and 1927, D'Ora's studio "produced" photographs for Ludwig Zwieback & Bruder, a Viennese department store.

She was represented by Schostal Photo Agency (Agentur Schostal)Rebecca Madamba (2008) The Schostal Agency: A Finding Aid for the Schostal Agency Collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Thesis of the Honours Bachelors of Arts, Studies in Arts and Culture, Concentration in Curatorial Studies, Brock University. 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.Milena Grief, "Agentur Schostal: Mit den Fotos Kehrt die Erinnerung zurück." Rundbrief Fotografie 9, no. 2. (June 2002), 30 - 33

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. Four years prior, she had sustained injuries after being hit by a motorcycle in Paris, resulting in her returning to Vienna.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=buVTAAAAMAAJ&q=Dora+Philippine+Kallmus|title=Portraits of an Age: Photography in Germany and Austria, 1900-1938|isbn=9783775715645|last1=Faber|first1=Monika|last2=Frecot|first2=Janos|last3=York|first3=Neue Galerie New|last4=Albertina|first4=Graphische Sammlung|year=2005|publisher=Neue Galerie New York }} 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.

• 2012/13: Vienna's Shooting Girls – Jüdische Fotografinnen aus Wien, Jewish Museum Vienna, Austria{{Cite web|url=http://www.jmw.at/en/exhibitions/viennas-shooting-girls-jewish-women-photographers-vienna|title=Vienna's Shooting Girls. Jewish Women Photographers from Vienna {{!}} Jüdisches Museum Wien|website=www.jmw.at|access-date=2020-03-08}}
• 2018: Madame d’Ora. Machen Sie mich schön!, Leopold Museum, Vienna, Austria{{Cite web|url=https://www.leopoldmuseum.org/en/exhibitions/100/make-me-look-beautiful-madame-dora|title=MAKE ME LOOK BEAUTIFUL, MADAME D'ORA! {{!}} Archive {{!}} EXHIBITIONS {{!}} Leopold Museum|website=www.leopoldmuseum.org|access-date=2020-03-08}}
• 2019/20: Der große Bruch: d'Oras Spätwerk, GrazMuseum, Graz, Austria{{Cite web|url=https://www.grazmuseum.at/ausstellung/der-grosse-bruch/|title=Der große Bruch|website=Grazmuseum|language=de-DE|access-date=2020-03-08}}

{{Reflist}}

• The History of European Photography 1900–1938, FOTOFO., 2011. {{ISBN|978-80-85739-55-8}}

• Faber, Monica. (1987) Madame d'Ora: Vienna and Paris, 1907–1957, the Photography of Dora Kallmus. Vassar College. {{ISBN|978-0-916663-02-5}}.

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• [http://www.luminous-lint.com/__sw.php?action=ACT_SING_PH&p1=Madame__Dora&p2=A Photographer - D'Ora], Luminous-Lint

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Category:1881 births

Category:1963 deaths

Category:Fashion photographers

Category:Austrian Jews

Category:20th-century Austrian women photographers

Category:20th-century Austrian photographers