Yaffa, Claire

Claire Yaffa is a freelance photojournalist known for her social realism. Her work encompasses abused or neglected children and the ill, elderly, and homeless. In addition to the New York Foundling Hospital (now known as the "Foundling"), she has photographed for The National Foundation for Children with Learning Disabilities, the Incarnation Children's Hospital, Bronx-Lebanon Hospital, New York School for the Deaf and Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital. This work has been published in two photojournalism monographs: Reaching Out (1987) and A Dying Child is Born: The Story of Tracy (1992). Yaffa is a critically acclaimed fine art photographer as well. Her fine-art monographs include: Light and Shadow (1998), Moments (2004), Life’s Dream (2006), and Divertissement (2008). Her work has been exhibited at the International Center of Photography, the Hudson River Museum, the Neuberger Museum, Fait et Cause in Paris, and the United Nations, as well as published in major newspapers and magazines.

Claire Yaffa’s involvement with the Foundling began with a call in 1979 to Dr. Vincent J. Fontana, the medical director of the Foundling’s Center for Parent and Child Development. She asked how she might help his cause and he introduced her to the Temporary Shelter program, where abusive mothers lived with their children temporarily while learning better parenting skills. Her photographs there and at the Crisis Nursery eventually formed the basis of a 1987 exhibit at the International Center of Photography entitled “Reaching Out.” Yaffa then continued to photograph various programs at the Foundling over three decades. Her photos were featured in the organization’s promotional materials and events, as well as in news articles about the Foundling. Photographs from this collection were also featured in the 2001 book The Foundling: The Story of The New York Foundling Hospital by Martin Gottlieb, with contemporary photographs by Claire Yaffa.

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