Madame d’Ora. Eleganz und Exzentrik

Madame d’Ora takes her place among the greatest authors of 20th-century European photography. For over 50 years, d’Ora created portraits that exude elegance and individuality and reflect the prevailing spirit of the times. ‘Madame d’Ora. Elegance and Eccentricity’ presents the extensive collection held by the State of Upper Austria for the first time. Examining aesthetic, technical and historical aspects, the exhibition spans the period from her early years in Vienna to her later creative phases in Paris. The publication sheds light on the life’s work of a photographer who has left a striking mark on modernity.

In 1907, Dora Kallmus alias Madame d’Ora (1881–1963) establishes a studio in Vienna, which is frequented by renowned personalities from the aristocracy, the arts, and society. Inspired by the art photography of the period around 1900, she creates photographs exuding elegance and individuality that reflect the zeitgeist of the period.

With her assured sense of style, d’Ora creates striking portraits of cultural greats such as Arthur Schnitzler, Hermann Bahr, Alexander Girardi, and Lovis Corinth. She presents the beauty of well-known stage personalities including Fritzi Massary, Zerline Balten, and Anna Pawlowa, and captures the eccentric dance poses of the scandalous Anita Berber in expressive images. As one of the first fashion photographers, she documents the clothing creations of the Wiener Werkstätte and portrays the fashion entrepreneur and style icon Emilie Flöge. The brilliant portraits of the Hungarian high aristocracy Dora Kallmus photographs on the occasion of the coronation of Emperor Karl as King of Hungary in 1916/17 give a unique impression of the splendour of an epoch that was about to end.

From 1925 onwards, Dora Kallmus lives in Paris, where she photographs international stars such as Josephine Baker and Ida Rubinstein, created glamorous fashion photographs, and worked on the consistent development of her photographic style. The photographer’s late work is marked by the persecution and loss she experienced during the Second World War. The glamorous became mingled with morbid aspects to create a new artistic language that finds its expression in images of animal carcasses in Parisian slaughterhouses. (Gabriele Hofer-Hagenauer)