Claudia Andujar

Claudia Andujar studied at Hunter College. The recorded working language is Portuguese. Places of work recorded in the authority are New York City. Work by Claudia Andujar is recorded in the collections of Museum of Modern Art, Tate and National Museum of Fine Arts, Argentina. Distinctions recorded are Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize, Order of Cultural Merit (Brazil), Guggenheim Fellowship and Goethe Medal.

• Name — Claudia Andujar • Birth Name — Claudine Haas • Born — 1931 • Birthplace — Neuchâtel, Switzerland • Education — Hunter College • Occupation — photographer and activist

The daughter of a Hungarian Jewish father (Siegfried Haas) and a Swiss mother (Germaine Guye Haas), 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. Towards the end of World War II, 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. There she met a Spanish refugee, Julio Andujar, whom she married in 1949 and whose last name she still maintains because she wanted "to forget everything that happened" and "start anew." Andujar moved to Brazil in 1956 to stay with her mother, Germaine Guye Haas. In 1976, she was naturalised as Brazilian.

A project on the Karajá people in central Brazil led her to a career in photojournalism. Her work has appeared in various magazines, including Life, Look, Fortune, Aperture, Realidade and Claudia. She has documented the culture of the 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 settlers. During the 1980s, an influx of illegal gold miners into this region led to more health problems, including an outbreak of malaria and mercury poisoning. Twenty per cent of the Yanomami population died as a result. Andujar played an important role in establishing the Commission for the Creation of the Yanomami Park which led to the Brazilian government establishing a 96,000 km 2 protected area for use by the Yanomami. A gallery of the Inhotim museum in Brumadinho was built to display her work.

Andujar's work is held in the following permanent collections: • Eastman House, Rochester, New York: 1 print (as of 18 December 2024) • Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: 2 prints (as of 18 December 2024) • Museum of Modern Art, New York City: 109 prints (as of 18 December 2024) • Tate, UK: 22 prints (as of 19 December 2024)