Věra Caltová

Věra Caltová
1993
Born	(1923-03-15)15 March 1923 Plzeň, Czechoslovakia
Died	15 May 2009(2009-05-15) (aged 86) Plzeň, Czech Republic
Nationality	Czechoslovak
Known for	Theatre photography

Věra Caltová (15 June 1923 – 15 May 2009) was a Czech photographer. From 1950 til 1983 she worked as a theatre photographer at the J. K. Tyl Theatre of Plzeň.

She was born on 15 June 1923 in Plzeň. Starting in 1947, she was trained as a photographer in the studio of the Kramlík company in Plzeň. In 1948, she was employed at František Krasl's photographic studio in Frýdek-Místek. Thereafter she worked at Langhans' studio in Plzeň. One of her teachers was Miroslav Hák (1911−1978). She used a camera from the brand Praktica.

In 1950 she started to work at the J. K. Tyl Theatre of Plzeň. She stayed there for 34 years, she followed actors, dancers and singers through the viewfinder, tried to capture the spirit of the performance and the characters. Věra Caltová in her own words:

A record of the transience of a theatre moment, so it is not destined to disappear. It remains with us, even when people's memory is already weakening or completely failing. It preserves what was created on stage for a few dozen or hundreds of spectators. And it preserves it for entire future generations. Theatre photography is indeed the documentation of a work of art, but it has all the prerequisites to become a work of art itself. A unique and unrepeatable one.

In 1991 a book on the J. K. Tyl Theatre was published. It contains many of her photographs.^[2]

She married Antonín Calta on 25 February 1941 in Plzeň. The couple had one daughter, Marie, born in 1944. She later-on became a dramaturg of the J. K. Tyl Theatre.

• Dance photography by Věra Caltová
• 
  Othello
  1960
• 
  Veselé paničky windsorské
  1960
• 
  Čarodějův učeň
  1963

• Věra Caltová on Encyklopedie Plzeň (in Czech)