1934-1987
189 SECOND AVE.
THE PETER HUJAR ARCHIVE
SELECTED PHOTOS BY PETER HUJAR
ANTONY HEGARTY ON PETER HUJAR
In the '70s and '80s, Peter Hujar photographed the wrought underbelly of Manhattan’s Westside with the eye of a classically trained portrait painter whose palette was restricted to, but not limited by, all of the gradations of black and white. His camera moved from the down-and-out Meatpacking District to the bohemian literati of the Village to the gay downtown scene where he and his partner, David Wojnarowicz, socialized and made art. Hujar’s extraordinary book of photography, Portraits in Life and Death, was the only collection of his work to be published during his lifetime. Friend and fellow photographer Nan Goldin described his images as “the closest I ever came to experiencing what it is to inhabit male flesh." He died at the age of 53.