Claudia Andujar

The daughter of a Hungarian Jewish father (Siegfried Haas) and a Swiss mother (Germaine Guye Haas), she was born Claudine Haas in Neuchâtel, Switzerland.{{cite web |title=Claudia Andujar: Visão Yanomami |url=http://arquivomunicipal.cm-lisboa.pt/fotos/editor2/Press%20Releases/press_claudiaandujar.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180409195932/http://arquivomunicipal.cm-lisboa.pt/fotos/editor2/Press%20Releases/press_claudiaandujar.pdf |archive-date=2018-04-09 |publisher=Arquivo Municipal de Lisboa |language=pt}}{{Cite web |last=Luna |first=Fernando |date=27 March 2017 |title=Claudia Andujar, a lutadora |url=http://revistatrip.uol.com.br/trip/claudia-andujar-fotografa-artista-visual-e-ativista-indios-yanomami |website=Trip |language=pt-br}} 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.{{Cite book |last=Andujar |first=Claudia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mRhkAAAAMAAJ |title=A vulnerabilidade do ser |date=2005 |publisher=Cosac Naify |isbn=8575033956 |pages=115–116 |language=pt-br}} 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.{{cite web |url=https://lannan.org/art/artist/claudia-andujar |title=Claudia Andujar |publisher=Lannan Foundation}}{{cite web |url=https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/claudia-andujar/ |title=Claudia Andujar |work=John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship}}{{Cite news|url=https://revistatrip.uol.com.br/trip/claudia-andujar-fotografa-artista-visual-e-ativista-indios-yanomami|title=O governo não tem interesse nenhum na vida dos Yanomami|work=Trip|access-date=2018-11-23|language=pt-br}} In 1976, she was naturalised as Brazilian.{{Cite book |url=https://www.jusbrasil.com.br/diarios/93139843/dou-secao-1-02-06-2015-pg-31 |title=Página 31 da Seção 1 do Diário Oficial da União (DOU) de 2 de Junho de 2015 |date=2 June 2015 |publisher=Diário Oficial da União |pages=31 |language=pt-br}}

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.{{cite news |vauthors=Griffin J |title='The Yanomami could disappear' – photographer Claudia Andujar on a people under threat in Brazil |url=https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/mar/25/brazil-yanomami-could-disappear-photographer-claudia-andujar-people-under-threat |work=the Guardian |date=25 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210325084605/https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/mar/25/brazil-yanomami-could-disappear-photographer-claudia-andujar-people-under-threat |archive-date=25 March 2021 |language=en}} 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.{{cite web |url=https://www.formidablemag.com/claudia-andujar/ |title=Claudia Andujar |work=Formidable Mag}} 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 km² protected area for use by the Yanomami.

A gallery of the Inhotim museum in Brumadinho was built to display her work.{{cite web |url=https://www.archdaily.com/783827/galeria-claudia-andujar-arquitetos-associados |title=Claudia Andujar Art Gallery / Arquitetos Associados |work=ArchDaily|date=December 2019 }}

• 1971: Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, New York
• 1977: Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, New York
• 2000: Cultural Freedom Prize, Lannan Literary Awards, for her work in portraying and aiding the Yanomani people{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NsolmLbz8igC&pg=PA315 |title=Photography: A Cultural History |page=315 |last=Marien |first=Mary Warner |year=2006 |publisher=Laurence King |isbn=1856694933}}
• 2008: Grand Cross, Ordem do Mérito Cultural, Brazil{{cite web |url=http://www.abi.org.br/ordem-do-merito-cultural-2008/ |title=Ordem do Mérito Cultural 2008 |publisher=Associação Brasileira de Imprensa |language=pt}}
• 2018: Goethe Medal, Goethe-Institut, for her work with the Yanomami people{{Cite news|url=https://www.survivalinternational.org/news/11994|title=Groundbreaking photographer who fled Nazi persecution awarded top German honor|last=Survival International|access-date=2018-11-23|language=en}}

Andujar's work is held in the following permanent collections:

• Eastman House, Rochester, New York: 1 print (as of 18 December 2024){{Cite web |title=Claudia Andujar {{!}} People {{!}} George Eastman Museum |url=https://collections.eastman.org/people/2497/claudia-andujar;jsessionid=40843772A475E416B299F729A5B65621 |access-date=2024-12-18 |website=collections.eastman.org |language=en}}
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: 2 prints (as of 18 December 2024){{Cite web |title=Works {{!}} Claudia Andújar {{!}} People {{!}} The MFAH Collections |url=https://emuseum.mfah.org/people/10238/claudia-andujar/objects |access-date=2024-12-18 |website=emuseum.mfah.org}}
• Museum of Modern Art, New York City: 109 prints (as of 18 December 2024)
• Tate, UK: 22 prints (as of 19 December 2024)

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book |last1=Rosenblum |first1=Naomi |title=A History of Women Photographers |date=2014 |publisher=Abbeville}}

• [https://www.moma.org/artists/182?locale=en Claudia Andujar] at Museum of Modern Art.
• Gerhard Bissell, [https://www.degruyter.com/view/AKL/_30137578?rskey=txJN9N&result=1&dbq_0=%22Andujar%2C+Claudia%22&dbf_0=akl-name&dbt_0=name&o_0=AND Andujar, Claudia], in: Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon (Artists of the World), Suppl. I, Saur, Munich 2005, from p. 349 (in German).

{{Order of Cultural Merit}}

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Category:1931 births

Category:Living people

Category:Brazilian photographers

Category:Brazilian women photographers

Category:Hunter College alumni

Category:Brazilian activists

Category:Brazilian people of Hungarian-Jewish descent

Category:Swiss people of Hungarian descent

Category:Swiss people of Jewish descent

Category:Swiss emigrants to Brazil