OTTO KALLIR & THE HISTORY OF HUMAN FLIGHT

Otto Kallir, who dreamed of becoming an engineer, was very much in thrall to the scientific and technological wonders promised by the nascent twentieth century, human flight foremost among them. In 1909, at the tender age of fifteen, he persuaded his uncle's printing firm to publish his first short treatise on the subject, Geschichte der Luftschiffahrt (History of Aeronautics). This nineteen-page pamphlet cogently summarized the development of aviation to date, beginning with the lighter-than-air experiments of the Montgolfier brothers in 1782, and concluding with the then extremely recent breakthroughs of Orville and Wilbur Wright. When one considers that the Wrights' achievements had only become generally known in Europe in 1908, and that at the time no aircraft had flown over water or carried a passenger aloft much longer than ten minutes, Kallir's concluding remarks seem exceptionally prescient: "Aviation will soon exceed all expectations and become the safest and fastest means of transport in the world."

Surprisingly, Kallir's personal experiences with flying were comparatively pedestrian. While an officer in World War I, he made some memorable flights over Italy, but as an observer, not a pilot. After the war, he befriended Robert Kronfeld, Austria's most important glider pilot. However, Kallir's wife considered glider flying too dangerous and soon made him give it up. His hopes of an engineering career were dashed by the anti-Semitism rampant in that field, so Kallir determined to earn his living as an art dealer. His surviving passion for aviation thus was henceforth directed exclusively toward his collection, started already as a boy. The collection quickly grew to adult proportions, encompassing books, graphics, memorabilia, leaflets, medals, autographs and aerophilately. Kallir founded the Austrian Airmail Collectors' Association and throughout the 1930s exhibited his own holdings all over Europe, amassing an impressive array of gold medals.

However, in 1934, anticipating that the rising tide of Nazism might one day force him to flee Austria, Kallir sold a major portion of his aeronautica at a legendary sale organized by the Lucerne auction house Gilhofer & Ranschburg. With the proceeds, he was able to finance his family's emigration to America, following Hitler's annexation of Austria in 1938. For the next few years, Kallir had to give priority to reestablishing his art gallery in New York, but as the situation stabilized, he began to think again about his now greatly diminished aeronautical holdings. The principal surviving component was a massive compendium (thought to be the largest in the world) of World War I propaganda leaflets. Kallir himself had picked up the first of these during the war, but the collection had subsequently been greatly expanded through judicious purchases and trades. Among its highlights were rare items by Gabriele D'Annunzio and two pieces, signed jointly by Lenin and Trotsky, announcing the Bolshevik Revolution.

It was natural that Kallir's original aeronautical collection should have a largely European focus, but he was now living in a country that had made numerous pivotal contributions to modern aviation, and his new, reconstituted collection clearly benefited from these circumstances. The collecting process became something of a treasure hunt: many acquaintances of the pioneer aviators were still alive, and Kallir spent joyful years tracking them down. From Carl Dienstbach, a journalist who had known the Wright Brothers, Kallir acquired both Wright and Lilienthal memorabilia. Major Lester Gardner, to whom the Wrights had entrusted the fabric from the original Kitty Hawk plane, provided Kallir with a piece sufficient to cover a custom-made scale model. Harry P. Moore, one of five witnesses to the Wrights' historic 1903 flight, transcribed his memories at Kallir's request. The goal, wherever possible, was to gather material that told a complete story, so that, for example, Kallir's trove of Wright documents eventually grew to cover the brothers' lifelong careers. Among numerous items pertaining to Charles Lindbergh, Kallir assembled the four checks used to purchase the "Spirit of St. Louis," the application and license for the first transatlantic flight, the license plate itself, and the landing certificate issued at Paris in 1927. Over the course of time, Kallir's second aviation collection came to surpass the first: it comprised not only a spectacular array of autographs, graphics and documents, but a comprehensive aeronautical library, the original leaflet archive, and numerous exceedingly rare aerophilatelic items. In fact, Kallir managed to replace much of what he had once sold, including the famed Newfoundland "Hawker" cover. His holdings ultimately spanned the entire history of human flight, from the earliest days of ballooning through the landmark events of the twentieth century.

It was only in the last decade of his life that Kallir began to focus on the significance and final destiny of his aeronautical collection, which he at last deemed mature enough to make public. Respected in the field for years, he was asked to serve on the executive committee for the 1966 International Airmail and Aerospace Exhibition, where highlights from his collection were featured under the title "The History of Human Flight." In 1971, a similar cross-section of Kallir's collection received three special awards (two gold medals and the prize for "best airmail collection") at the INTERPEX exposition. The following year, relevant portions were included in the exhibition Ballooning: 1782-1972 at the Smithsonian Institution. Recognizing that Kallir's holdings and those of the newly founded National Air & Space Museum were in many respects complementary, the museum's deputy director suggested collaborating on a comprehensive illustrated history of aviation, but declining health made it difficult for Kallir to pursue the idea. The Kallir collection of aviation materials was finally sold at Sotheby's, New York, in 1993. Many of the key works thereby entered museum collections, while others were dispersed to feed the enthusiasm of a new generation of collectors.