Katia Krafft

Born

1942-04-17

Died

1991-06-03

Birthplace

Guebwiller, Haut-Rhin, France

Biography

Katia Krafft, born Catherine Marie Joséphine Conrad on April 17, 1942, in the town of Soultz-Haut-Rhin, in Alsace, to Charles and Madeleine Conrad. From her childhood, Katia Krafft showed an assertive character to the point of sometimes being turbulent. Her parents, Charles and Madeleine, respectively a worker and a schoolteacher, wanted their daughter to settle down and so they sent her to do part of her schooling in a religious school. She became a schoolteacher, then a mathematics professor, after passing the competitive examination for the École Normale in 1957 and studying physics and geochemistry at the University of Strasbourg. In 1969, she received the Fondation de la Vocation prize for her work in volcanology. In 1966, she met Maurice Krafft at the University of Besançon and they married in 1970. With little money, the Kraffts saved up to pay for a trip to Stromboli and photographed its almost continuous volcanic eruptions. Realizing that people were interested in this documentation of eruptions, they quickly made a career out of filming volcanic eruptions, which allowed them to travel all over the world. For 25 years, they traveled the world together, he favoring the camera, she the camera; Katia and Maurice Krafft were nicknamed the volcano devils by American scientists, thus reflecting a feeling of admiration and recognition for the enthusiasm and passion for the profession expressed by the couple of French volcanologists. Katia and Maurice Krafft set up numerous expeditions around the world: Italy, Iceland, Indonesia, Africa, America, Reunion, Hawaii, New Zealand, collecting numerous documents on volcanoes in eruption or that could wake up, at most eight per year, 175 during their entire career, except those of the USSR for political reasons. They are more than photographers and filmmakers. He, as a geologist, and she, as a chemist and physicist, are real scientists whose images, samples and detailed descriptions of eruptive phenomena provide essential elements for understanding them. In twenty-five years of activity, Katia and Maurice Krafft have built up a truly exceptional iconographic heritage: more than 300,000 photos, 300 hours of film, 20,000 books dealing with geology, some 6,000 lithographs and old paintings. On June 3, 1991, at approximately 4:00 p.m. local time, Mount Unzen erupted, sending pyroclastic flows hurtling down its slopes, killing 37 people, including the Kraffts and fellow volcanologist Harry Glicken. On June 5, local authorities and Shimabara police reported that military search teams had recovered the bodies of Glicken, Katia, and Maurice Krafft. The Kraffts were found near their car, lying side by side under a thin layer of ash. Katia and Maurice Krafft's remains were cremated in Japan in a Catholic funeral service, and their ashes were placed in Katia Krafft's family grave in Alsace.