Claudia Andujar (born June 12, 1931) is a
Swiss-born
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
ian photographer and activist.
Life
The daughter of a
Hungarian Jewish
The history of the Jews in Hungary dates back to at least the Kingdom of Hungary, with some records even predating the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in 895 CE by over 600 years. Written sources prove that Jewish communities lived ...
father and a
Swiss mother, she was born Claudine Haas in
Neuchâtel, Switzerland. She grew up in the city of
Oradea, which changed hands between the kingdoms
of Hungary and
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...
.
Towards the end of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, she and her mother took refuge in Switzerland.
Her father died in the
Dachau concentration camp, and the rest of her father's family died either at Dachau or
Auschwitz.
She studied humanities at
Hunter College in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
. There she met a Spanish refugee, Julio Andujar, whom she married in 1949 and whose last name she still maintains. Andujar moved to Brazil in 1956 to stay with her mother, Germaine Guye Haas.
Karajá
The Karajá, also known as Iny, are an indigenous tribe located in Brazil.[Karaja Indians.]
''Hands Aro ...
people in central Brazil led her to a career in photojournalism. Her work has appeared in various magazines, including ''Life
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for Cell growth, growth, reaction to Stimu ...
'', '' Look'', '' Fortune'', ''Aperture
In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and focal length of an optical system determine the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane.
An ...
'', '' Realidade'' and '' Claudia''.[
She has documented the culture of the ]Yanomami
The Yanomami, also spelled Yąnomamö or Yanomama, are a group of approximately 35,000 indigenous people who live in some 200–250 villages in the Amazon rainforest on the border between Venezuela and Brazil.
Etymology
The ethnonym ''Yanomami' ...
people over the years, including a book ''Yanomami: The House, The Forest, The Invisible'' published in 1998.[ The Yanomami had had little contact with the outside world. When a highway project through their territory led to a disastrous outbreak of measles, she suspended her photographic work to help bring medical aid to them. In 1977, Brazil’s military regime expelled her from the region after she denounced the appropriation of indigenous lands by ]settler
A settler is a person who has migrated to an area and established a permanent residence there, often to colonize the area.
A settler who migrates to an area previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited may be described as a pioneer.
Settl ...
s.malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. S ...
and mercury poisoning. Twenty per cent of the Yanomami population died as a result.[
Her work was supported by Guggenheim Fellowships in 1971 and 1977.][
Andujar's photographs are included in the collections of various museums, including the ]Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
in New York City and the Eastman House in Rochester, New York
Rochester () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, and Yonkers, with a population of 211,328 at the 2020 United States census. Located in W ...
.Inhotim
The Inhotim Institute is home to one of the largest foundations of contemporary art in Brazil and one of the largest outdoor art centers in Latin America. It was founded by the former mining magnate Bernardo Paz in 2004 to house his personal art ...
museum in Brumadinho was built to display her work.
Andujar received a Cultural Freedom Prize in 2000 for her work in portraying and aiding the Yanomani people. In 2008, she was named to the Brazilian Ordem do Mérito Cultural
The Ordem do Mérito Cultural is an honor bestowed by the Ministry of Culture to personalities, bodies both public and private, national and foreign, as a recognition of their contributions to Brazilian culture.
The award was established bLaw N ...
. In 2018, she received a Goethe Medal
The Goethe Medal, also known as the Goethe-Medaille, is a yearly prize given by the Goethe-Institut honoring non-Germans "who have performed outstanding service for the German language and for international cultural relations". It is an offici ...
for her groundbreaking work with the Yanomami.
References
Further reading
*
External links
Claudia Andujar
at Museum of Modern Art.
* Gerhard Bissell Gerhard is a name of Germanic origin and may refer to:
Given name
* Gerhard (bishop of Passau) (fl. 932–946), German prelate
* Gerhard III, Count of Holstein-Rendsburg (1292–1340), German prince, regent of Denmark
* Gerhard Barkhorn (1919–19 ...
''Andujar, Claudia''
in: ''Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon
Thieme-Becker is a German biographical dictionary of artists.
Thieme-Becker
The dictionary was begun under the editorship of Ulrich Thieme (1865–1922) (volumes one to fifteen) and Felix Becker (1864–1928) (volumes one to four). It was complet ...
(Artists of the World)'', Suppl. I, Saur, Munich 2005, from p. 349 (in German).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Andujar, Claudia
1931 births
Living people
Brazilian photographers
Brazilian women photographers
Hunter College alumni
Brazilian activists
Brazilian people of Hungarian-Jewish descent
Swiss people of Hungarian descent
Swiss people of Jewish descent
Swiss emigrants to Brazil