Christine Turnauer – Biography

Christine Turnauer started her photographic career in Paris where she apprenticed to various photographers. From 1974 to 1976, she was the assistant to Frank Horvat, and then until 1979 she worked as a freelance photographer.

In 1979, she emigrated to Alberta, in Western Canada, where she pursued various photographic projects, the most important one being the portraits of North-American Native Indian traditional dancers. In 1992, a publication of her work with the title Portraits was published in Canada and in 2019, in Europe and the United States, under the title I saw more than I can tell by Hatje Cantz and D.A.P Publishing. This series of photographs was notably on show at the Weltmuseum in Vienna from May 2021 to January 2022.

Since her return to Europe in 1995, she has traveled to Japan, Romania, Ethiopia, Jerusalem, India, Greece, Turkey, and Mongolia to pursue her photographic work. In 2014, her series of black-and-white portraits from these travels and encounters was published under the title Presence by Hatje Cantz. It was exhibited in Vienna in 2014 and in Arles in 2018 (KLV Art Project and the City of Arles).

Her new photographic project concentrates on the dignity of the Gypsies, which took her to the North-West of India where the roots begin, and then through Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Montenegro, and Kosovo. The book The Dignity of the Gypsies was published by Hatje Cantz in Europe in September 2017 and D.A.P Publishing for the United States in 2018.

In 2018, during her exhibition Presence in Arles, she was fortunate to meet some of the Gypsies of Arles. They became friends, which inspired her to make a tribute to her friends Gitanos from Arles and from the Camargue region, also on show in this exhibition.