It was during the summer of 1878 that the world famous photographer and macramé artist Maximillian Von Dusselldorff arrived in the Black Hills area of the Dakotas. The purpose of his visit was to photograph famous characters of the American West and return to his native Germany where there was a ready market for such photos.
Naturally Kalamity Jane was high on the list of desired subjects; not only for her fame as a female teamster, but also because she always wore buckskins. Europe at that time was crazy for anything leather. After photographing Kalamity in the usual poses of the period, Von Dusselldorff struck on the idea of a naked lady pose, which was then popular for post cards, especially in Switzerland. When Maximillian presented his idea to Kalamity, she at first thought that this was a most ridiculous idea. She had not undressed, at least not completely since she was a little girl growing up in Dead Wood, South Dakota; not even for a bath, which she hadn't taken since she could say the word "no".
It was her friend and fellow teamster, Salt
Lake City Fred, who finally convinced her to pose for Dusselldorff.
"Goshallmighty Kalamity!" Salt Lake shouted, a little
brown drivel of tobacco juice leaking out of the corner of his
mouth.
"They dad burned well ain't nothing to it. It can't be no
sheeouting worse than mooning, and you've done that a lot."
Kalamity had the habit of mooning any teamster who was foolish
enough to try to run her mule team off the road. 1
Fred had convinced Kalamity and she posed, minus her buckskins. It was on this historical photograph2 that I based my painting." The Only Known Knude of Kalamity Jane". I am deeply indebted to Maximillian Von Dusselldorff for his original and pioneering efforts in early Western Photography.
1 Mooning was a common practice on the Western Frontier and
was thought to have originated among Native Americans.
2 The photograph did not sell well in Europe.