Peter Hujar

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Peter Hujar (born October 11, 1934 in Trenton, New Jersey , † November 26, 1987 in Westchester County ) was an American photographer of Ukrainian descent.

life and work

Hujar was born to Ukrainian parents Rose Kubela and Joseph Hujar. Ukrainian was spoken at home, but Hujar only learned English at school. After the father had left the family before the son was born, Hujar grew up on his grandparents' farm. After his grandmother's death, he moved to Manhattan at the age of twelve to live with his mother and her second husband. Shortly afterwards, Hujar received his first camera and found the first motifs on his grandfather's farm. From 1948 to 1952 he attended a college for art and design, the High School of Art and Design, followed by practical training with professional photographers. He also received funding from Daisy Aldan .

From 1955, Hujar took photographs with his own artistic claim. During this time he moved in the New York bohème of the East Village and the Lower East Side and made friends with Paul Thek , his future partner, as well as with Linda Rosencrantz and Joseph Raffael. In 1958 he went to Italy with Raffael to work there for two years. In 1962/1963 he spent another long time in Italy, where the pictures were taken in the Catacombs of Palermo. In 1964 he starred in Screen Test by Andy Warhol with.

In 1966/1967 Hujar took part in a master class of photographers Richard Avedon and Marvin Israel , where he was introduced by Alexei Brodowitsch at Harper's Bazaar magazine . He worked for her regularly as a fashion photographer until around 1970. An ongoing artistic exchange linked him with Diane Arbus and Robert Mapplethorpe .

With the establishment of his own studio from the end of 1969, Hujar increasingly turned to other topics. His portraits of artists, musicians and the gay scene in Manhattan became famous. His photos of animals, which were also one of his first motifs on his grandparents' farm, were also essential.

Hujar was not financially successful during his lifetime and sometimes lived on the poverty line. However, he found great recognition among fellow artists. Richard Avedon stood up for him and Nan Goldin admired him. Susan Sontag wrote the foreword to his volume Portraits in Life and Death (1976). Hujar received greater recognition in 1982 for the exhibition in Basel curated by Jean-Christophe Ammann .

In 1987 Peter Hujar died as a result of an AIDS illness. Hujar is one of those American artists whose importance was first recognized in Europe. His works can be found in the Folkwang Museum in Essen and the Whitney Museum of Art in New York , among others .

Style and way of working

Hujar's view of his motifs was empathetic and focused; the backgrounds of the pictures either do not exist or only have sparse props. Some of his models report that Hujar never tried to influence the manner in which the subjects portrayed themselves, nor did they help them to overcome their shyness. He was looking for the moment at which the self-staging had not yet succeeded or had already collapsed again. The little anecdote sheds light on his way of working when Hujar, when asked about his plan for the day, replied: “I have to make a portrait of a bush.” Hujar's work seems inappropriate for its time. His pictures are formally classic, “but it's exciting classicism, it's classicism without comfort: classicism without consolation. This is a classicism that stares into hell. And that's what gives these images their wonderful integrity, intelligence and power. "

Exhibitions (selection)

Publications

Literature (selection)

  • Urs Stahel and Hripsimé Visser (eds.): Peter Hujar - A Retrospective , Scalo, Zurich, Berlin, New York 1994, ISBN 3-9803851-0-8
  • Klaus Kertess: Peter Hujar - Animals and Nudes , Twin Palms Publishers, Santa Fe 2001, ISBN 0-944092-95-0
  • Robert Nickas: Peter Hujar - Night 2005

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Valérie Duponchelle: Peter Hujar, entre Éros et Thanatos - À Paris, le Jeu de Paume expose cette figure de l'avant-garde new-yorkaise et du monde gay . In: Le Figaro . No. 23,412 . Paris November 22, 2019, p. 32 .
  2. ↑ Stephen Koch Classicism without Consolation in: Urs Stahel and Hripsimé Visser (eds.): Peter Hujar - A Retrospective Scalo , Zurich, Berlin, New York 1994
personal data
SURNAME Hujar, Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American photographer
DATE OF BIRTH October 11, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Trenton, New Jersey
DATE OF DEATH November 26, 1987
Place of death Westchester County