Peter Hujar
Peter Hujar is a photographer that I was completely oblivious to until recently when I acquired a copy of his book ‘Portraits in Life and Death’. Instantly captivated by his work, it was obvious that this was a photographer that I should research.
The following quote and images come from Matthew Marks Gallery….
“Peter Hujar (born 1934) died of AIDS in 1987, leaving behind a complex and profound body of photographs. Hujar was a leading figure in the group of artists, musicians, writers, and performers at the forefront of the cultural scene in downtown New York in the 1970s and early 80s, and he was enormously admired for his completely uncompromising attitude towards work and life. He was a consummate technician, and his portraits of people, animals, and landscapes, with their exquisite black-and-white tonalities, were extremely influential. Highly emotional yet stripped of excess, Hujar’s photographs are always beautiful, although rarely in a conventional way. His extraordinary first book, Portraits in Life and Death, with an introduction by Susan Sontag, was published in 1976, but his “difficult” personality and refusal to pander to the marketplace insured that it was his last publication during his lifetime.“
You can see more of Hujar’s work at the Matthew Marks Gallery or Peterhujararchive
