Claire Anita Aho (2 November 1925 – 29 November 2015), was a Finnish photographer.

Early life

Born in

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the capital, primate, and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of . The city ...

, Claire Aho was the daughter of Finnish film director Heikki Aho (son of the Finnish national author

Juhani Aho Juhani Aho, originally Johannes Brofeldt (11 September 1861 – 8 August 1921), was a Finnish author and journalist. He was nominated for the Nobel prize in literature twelve times. Early life Juhani Aho was born at Lapinlahti in 1861. His pa ...

and his artist wife

Venny Soldan-Brofeldt Wendla Irene Soldan-Brofeldt, known as Venny (2 November 1863, Helsinki – 10 October 1945, Lohja) was a Finnish painter, illustrator, graphic artist, wood sculptor and jewelry designer. She belonged to the Swedish speaking population of Finland ...

). Claire's mother, Dinah Selkina, was Lithuanian-born dancer.

Career

She started her career in the 1940s at the

Aho & Soldan Heikki Taavetti Aho (29 May 1895 – 27 April 1961) is viewed as a pioneer of Finnish documentary film. Aho worked with his half-brother Björn Soldan (1902–1953) through their film production company Aho & Soldan (1925–1961) the Finnish docu ...

company, owned by her family. In the 1950s and 1960s, she was an early proponent of

colour photography Color photography is photography that uses media capable of capturing and reproducing colors. By contrast, black-and-white or gray- monochrome photography records only a single channel of luminance (brightness) and uses media capable only of ...

in Finland. Aho moved to Sweden in 1974 where she worked as a photographer for several newspapers including ''

Hufvudstadsbladet ''Hufvudstadsbladet'' (abbr. ''Hbl'') is the highest-circulation Swedish-language newspaper in Finland. Its headquarters is located in Helsinki, the capital of Finland. The name of the newspaper translates approximately into "Journal of the Capi ...

'' and with

Nordic Museum The Nordic Museum ( sv, Nordiska museet) is a museum located on Djurgården, an island in central Stockholm, Sweden, dedicated to the cultural history and ethnography of Sweden from the early modern period (in Swedish history, it is said t ...

. Aho's photos have been exhibited in

Kiel Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021). Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the Jutland ...

and London among others. A major retrospective of her work was held in

in 2011.

Death

She died in Stockholm on 29 November 2015 in a fire in her home. She was 90 years old.Valokuvaajalegenda Claire Aho on kuollut.
''Helsingin Sanomat'', 30 November 2015.

References

1925 births 2015 deaths Deaths from fire Artists from Helsinki Finnish people of Lithuanian descent Finnish emigrants to Sweden Accidental deaths in Sweden 20th-century women photographers 20th-century Finnish photographers 21st-century women photographers {{Finland-photographer-stub