Atelier d'Ora

Vienna

Documents associated with this entity:

Photographic studio at Wipplingerstraße 24 in the 1st district (Innere Stadt) of Vienna.

  Atelier d'Ora monograph (OJ 72/16, No. 2)
Atelier d'Ora monograph (OJ 72/16, No. 2)

The founder of the Atelier d'Ora in 1907 was Austrian-Jewish fashion and portrait photographer Dora [=d'Ora] Kallmus (1881–1963), her assistant being the German photographer Arthur Benda (1885–1969). In 1921, Benda became a partner in the studio, which operated a branch also in Karlsbad during the season. In 1927, Kallmus made the Atelier d'Ora over to Benda, who carried it on with his wife Hanny Mittler under the name "Atelier d'Ora-Benda." Kallmus moved to Paris, where from 1925 on she ran her own photographic studio and built up her reputation as a society and art photographer.

Atelier d'Ora and Schenker

  Photograph of Jeanette Schenker
Atelier d'Ora photograph of Jeanette Schenker, 1925 (OJ 72/16, No. 2)

Two photographic portraits of Jeanette Schenker, one signed "d'Ora," the other "d'Ora, Paris–Carlsbad–Vienne" survive as OJ 72/16, Nos. 2 (three-quarters length) and 3 (head and shoulders). The making of these is probably what is recorded in four entries in Schenker's diary for October 1925: 2nd: "After teatime, to the photographer d'Ora, we agree on Wednesday" — 7th: "In the morning at d'Ora (by automobile there and back)" — 10th: "At d'Ora: I order two photographs and one unedited print." — 30th: "To d'Ora (postcard): Lie-Liechen orders two small prints of a photograph" (OJ 3/8 pp. 2874–2876, 2882, 2884). These were evidently taken at the instigation of Alfred Rothberger, who in August 1925 had offered to "make a portrait" of Jeanette (OJ 3/7, pp. 2860, 2862); Rothberger later rejected those photographs in favor of a photograph by a family friend, Ludwig Bednař (OJ 3/8, p. 2882), which is not known to survive.

Heinrich does not appear to have been photographed in the Atelier d'Ora.

Sources:

  • Wiener Adreßbuch. Lehmanns Wohnungs-Anzeiger für Wien 1925, 66th year, vol. 2, part III, p. 557
  • A Catalog of Manuscripts and Other Papers in the Oswald Jonas Memorial Collection
  • Wikipedia.de (Madame d'Ora)
  • Communication by Eric Milenkiewicz of the Special Collections Library, University of California, Riverside

Contributors:

  • Marko Deisinger, Hedi Siegel, Ian Bent