PETER HUJAR

Early Years

Peter Hujar was born in 1934 and raised on a farm in New Jersey—his family were Ukrainian immigrants to the USA following the Second World War. His father absconded and his mother was not a brilliant example of parenting, leaving him to be brought up by his grandparents and finally moving him to New York City during his teens. However, he left home the night she through a bottle at his head.

With an interest in photography, in 1953 he enrolled in New York City’s School of Industrial Art—his teacher, Daisy Aldan, encouraged him to become a commercial photography apprentice, later working on fashion shoots with Richard Avedon. Alongside commercial photography, he pursued an artistic career, visiting Italy twice—notably in 1963, when he photographed the catacombs in Palermo. In the mid-1960s, he met Andy Warhol and posed for Warhol’s Screen Tests series. In 1967, he quit his commercial photography job to create his own artwork, becoming an influential gay rights activist, shooting the iconic Come Out!! image for the Gay Liberation Front. In 1973, he moved into a studio in the East Village where he worked and lived until his death in 1987 from complications related to Aids. During his lifetime, his work was hardly noticed, overshadowed by contemporaries including Robert Mapplethorpe.

Peter Hujar: Artworks

Peter Hujar’s commercial photography work gave him daily access to a darkroom, where he was able to experiment with technique and the different ways his images could communicate information. His black-and-white, square-format works captured his view of life from the East Village: friends, lovers, cityscapes, animals, New York City nightlife and gay culture. As his practice evolved, so did his darkroom techniques, moving from high contrast to a concentration on tonality, shading and detail.

• Candy Darling on her Deathbed (1973) pictures the transgender actress in a New York City hospital, surrounded by flowers. A muse to downtown artists on the New York scene and a member of Andy Warhol’s circle, she was suffering from Hodgkin’s lymphoma and died in 1974.
• Portraits in Life and Death, Hujar’s only book, was published in 1976 and barely noticed. It contained 29 images of performers, artists and writers he knew from the New York City scene, including Susan Sontag, Divine and Fran Lebowitz. However, the rest of the book contains shots of 17th-century skeletons from Hujar’s 1963 visit to Palermo. The photographs were exhibited as part of the Venice Biennale in 2024.
• Hujar documented the edgier side of New York City nightlife, wandering the streets of Manhattan and snapping images that encapsulated the atmosphere of the 1970s and 1980s. Man in Park (1981) is one of three images he made of men cruising in Stuyvesant Square Park.

Peter Hujar: Select Posthumous Exhibitions

Select Solo Exhibitions

• Hujar: Contact, Morgan Library and Museum, New York City (2026)
• Peter Hujar–Eyes Open in the Dark, Raven Row, London (2025) (and touring)
• Peter Hujar: Rialto, The Ukrainian Museum, New York, NY
• Portraits in Life and Death, Venice Biennale (2024)
• Peter Hujar curated by Elton John, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco (2022)
• Peter Hujar: Speed of Life, Fundación MAPFRE, Barcelona (2017) (and touring)
• Three Lives: Peter Hujar, Paul Thek and David Wojnarowicz, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York City (2011)
• Peter Hujar: Photographs 1956–1958, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York City (2009)
• Peter Hujar, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2007)
• Peter Hujar, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco (2002)
• Seminal Works, James Danziger Gallery, New York City (1998)
• Peter Hujar. A Charm in Life and Death, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (1995)
• Peter Hujar: Portraits of Animals, James Danziger Gallery, New York City (1992)
• Grey Art Gallery and Study Centre, New York University (1990)

Select Group Exhibitions

• Tom’s Stretch, David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles (2026)
• Disco, I’m Coming Out, Philharmonie de Paris, Musée de la Musique, Paris (2025)
• Fragile Beauty: Photographs from the Sir Elton John and David Furnish Collection, V&A South Kensington, London (2024)
• Studio to Stage: Music Photography from the 1950s to the Present, Pace Gallery, New York City (2022)
• Little Things: Parts I and II, Pace Gallery, Geneva (2021)
• Anohni: My Truth, James Elaine, Peter Hujar, Kazue Ohno, Kunsthalle Bielefeld (2016)
• Glam! The Performance of Style, Tate Liverpool (2013) (and touring)
• Legacy: The Emily Fisher Landau Collection, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City (2011)
• Street and Studio: An Urban History of Photography, Tate Modern, London (2008)
• From the Observatory, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York City (2002)
• In a Different Light, University Art Museum, University of California (1994)

Further Reading

• The Peter Hujar Archive Artist page at MoMA
• Artist profile page at Fraenkel Artists
• 2024 feature from The New York Times about Portraits of Life and Death
• 2024 profile in the Guardian 2021 article in Ocula

Peter Hujar FAQs

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