to become her mentor but because of her sex, she
was still denied the full spectrum of technical train-
ing. While Kallmus learned the basic principles of
portraiture, how to photograph, copy, retouch,
and deal with clients, she never fully learned all
the basic camera operations.
Undaunted by this shortcoming, however, Kall-
mus opened her own studio in Vienna during the
fall of 1907 simply called ‘‘d’Ora’’ perhaps to dis-
guise her Jewish origins. She enlisted the help of
Perscheid’s former first assistant Arthur Benda to
act as studio manager and to handle the technical
equipment, leaving Kallmus free to cultivate her
clientele. Their partnership endured until 1926.
From 1908 on, Kallmus began to call herself
Madame d’Ora. Many of her first patrons were
referred through personal and family relations. A
list of her earliest sitters reads like a who’s who of
Vienna’s elite society sprinkled with the names of
illustrious literary and artistic types such as Alma
Mahler-Werfel.
Following the model of Perscheid, the collabora-
tive work by Benda and Kallmus reflected the
photographers’ attention to artistic lighting and
treatment. Besides printing in silver and gum, they
were interested in a straight color printing process
known as Pinatype, a forerunner of dye-transfer
printing invented in France in 1903.
Considered at the onset of her career to be but a
‘professional amateur,’ within a few years of her
studio’s opening, Kallmus had established herself
as an art photographer, known for her elaborate
light management and ability to create artistic
photographs that corresponded to her sitter’s per-
sonality. Although Kallmus hardly ever had a cam-
era in hand, reserving her talents for stylistic
compositions while Benda took care of the technical
end of things, her creative photography and perso-
nal and family connections helped attract rich and
famous patrons predisposing a successful following.
In her photographic portraiture Madame d’Ora
introduced a compelling mixture of drama and
sophistication that earned her the patronage of
Europe’s most celebrated names. Her early interest
in theater, film, and fashion never diminished as is
evident in the costuming and posing of her photo-
graphed subjects. In an advertisement for a 1913
seasonal appearance in Berlin, the studio suggested
that ladies arrive with soft materials, furs, mugs,
evening coats, shawls, and hats, with which
Madame d’Ora might create artistic photographs.
The practice of assembling her subjects in imagina-
tive costume and dramatic poses draws a compar-
ison to the posturing and composition used by
Vienna Secession painter Gustav Klimt.
Beginning in 1915, theatrical photographs taken
in her studio preoccupied d’Ora. Photographs of
actors were in demand and actors became patrons
of studios whose photographs were well received by
the print media. The initiative for a portrait would
often come from Kallmus. It was in this capacity
that she formed a friendship with the celebrated
dancer Anna Pavlova whom she invited to her
Berlin studio in 1913. She became enthralled with
photographing the new modern dance movement
that had recently become popular in Europe.
Coupling her knowledge of the theater for
expressive posing with her keen fashion sense in
costuming her subjects, Kallmus synthesized her
model’s outward appearance with their inner val-
ues. Additionally, her photographs exuded a preci-
sion and vitality reflective of the photographer’s
concern with form—the contour of the model does
not blend with the surroundings but projects forth
from a dark or very light background. These effects
were accomplished in the studio where artificial
lighting was managed by Kallmus’ elaborate sta-
ging techniques.
When Emperor Karl became King of Hungary in
1916/17, d’Ora gained access to wives of Hungarian
magnates during the coronation festivities. In 1917,
her studio obtained permission to photograph the
Emperor Karl and his family. After spending the
first quarter of the century photographing Aus-
trian-Hungarian aristocracy, Kallmus moved to
Paris where her works captured the vitality of the
1920s fashion and entertainment milieu.
While still in Vienna around 1910, Kallmus, sen-
sing the trend toward more photographic represen-
tation in advertising media, had photographed
several times the hats of the Viennese designer
Rudolf Krieser; these were some of her particularly
imaginative creations. Arriving in Paris initially in
the early 1920s when the demand for fashion photo-
graphs in magazines was on the rise, Madame d’Ora
found fashion photography to be an important and
lucrative genre.
Soon Kallmus preferred to photograph fashion
over portraits because the process represented con-
stant change and stimulating challenge, one in
which she varied the disposition of her images to
correspond with the fashion items that were being
photographed. Her fashion photographs repre-
sented the top design houses including Patou,
Rochas, Chanel, Lanvin, and Worth.
Much of Kallmus’s success was due to her keen
sense for business. In the summers from 1921 to
1926, Kallmus and Benda followed the ‘interna-
tional’ set to the elegant health resort Karlsbad,
Czechoslovakia, where they ran a studio in theMADAME D’ORA