Austrian designer-entrepreneur Julius Theodor (J.T.) Kalmar was born in 1884 in Vienna. Son to Julius August Kalmar—founder of the eponymous company specializing in chandeliers and other cast bronze objects—Kalmar gained a wealth of design expertise in his formative years. Kalmar attended the Birmingham School of Art, as well as Vienna’s University of Applied Arts under Vienna Seccession architect Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956).