Peter Hujar

Overview
Courtesy of The Peter Hujar Archive, Pace Gallery, and Maureen Paley
Courtesy of The Peter Hujar Archive, Pace Gallery, and Maureen Paley
Peter Hujar photographed his subjects with penetrating sensitivity and psychological depth. Unflinching and at times dark, he captured intellectuals, luminaries, and members of New York City subculture in moments of disarmed vulnerability.

Hujar embraced male sexuality unabashedly, and was unafraid to examine death and dying. In her introduction to Portraits in Life and Death, Susan Sontag wrote, “…Fleshed and moist-eyed friends and acquaintances stand, sit, slouch, mostly lie – and are made to appear to meditate on their own mortality…Peter Hujar knows that portraits in life are always, also, portraits in death.” Hujar was at the forefront of the group of artists, musicians, writers, and performers in downtown New York in the 1970’s and early 80’s. He succumbed to AIDS in 1987, leaving behind a complex and profound body of work that has become posthumously celebrated.

 

Hujar’s photographs have been exhibited throughout Europe and the United States, including Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; Grey Art Gallery and Study Center, New York; Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland; P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York; and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam for a retrospective in 1994. Exhibited and organized by the Morgan Library & Museum in New York and Fundación MAPFRE in Madrid starting in 2017, the exhibition Speed of Life made its final stop at the Jeu de Paume in Paris, France in 2019. His work remains in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Works
Enquire

Send me more information on Peter Hujar

Please fill in the fields marked with an asterisk
Receive newsletters *
Terms and conditions

* denotes required fields

In order to respond to your enquiry, we will process the personal data you have supplied to communicate with you in accordance with our Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe or change your preferences at any time by clicking the link in our emails.

Guts Exhibitions 
Press
CV
Courtesy of The Peter Hujar Archive, Pace Gallery, and Maureen Paley
Courtesy of The Peter Hujar Archive, Pace Gallery, and Maureen Paley

Born 1934, Trenton, NJ, USA.
Died 1987, New York, NY, USA.


Selected Solo Exhibitions
2022 Peter Hujar curated by Elton John, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA
2021 Maureen Paley, London, UK
2019 Peter Hujar: Master Class, Pace Gallery, New York, NY, USA
2019 Speed of Life, Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio, USA; travelling to Jeu de Paume, Paris, France (C)
2018 Backstage, Le Studiolo, Galerie de France, Paris, France
2018 Speed of Life, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), California, USA (C)
2017 Peter Hujar: The Tribe, Alexander and Bonin, New York, NY, USA
2017 Speed of Life, Fundación MAPFRE, Casa Garriga i Nogués Exhibition Hall, Barcelona, Spain; travelling to the Fotomuseum, The Hague, Netherlands; the Morgan Library and Museum, New York, USA, the Berkeley Art Center,
2017 Berkeley, California, USA, and the Wexner Centre for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio, USA (C)
2016 21 Pictures, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, USA
2016 Peter Hujar: Lost Downtown, Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, NY, USA
2015 Night, Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne, Germany
2014 Maureen Paley, London, UK
2014 Peter Hujar: Love & Lust, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA
2013 Peter Hujar, Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York, NY, USA
2012 Peter Hujar, Fotografien - Kunstparterre e.V., Munich, Germany
2011 Three Lives: Peter Hujar, Paul Thek, & David Wojnarowicz, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York, USA
2011 Influential Friends, Glenn Horowitz Bookseller and Art Gallery, East Hampton, NY, USA
2010 Peter Hujar: Thek’s studio 1967, Alexander and Bonin, New York. Travelled to Mai 36 Galerie, Zürich, Maureen Paley, London
2009 Peter Hujar: Photographs 1956-1958, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York
2008 Peter Hujar: Second Avenue, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York
2008 Peter Hujar, Stills, Edinburgh, Scotland
2008 Maureen Paley, London

2008 Peter Hujar: Photography in the Seventies (The Outsiders), Marietta Neuss Projects, London

 

Duo Exhibitions
2020 Peter Hujar & Paul Thek, Mai 36 Galerie, Zurich, Switzerland
2020 Moyra Davey / Peter Hujar, Galerie Buchholz, Berlin, Germany
2018 Peter Hujar and David Wojnarowicz, LOEWE Gallery, Madrid, Spain
2015 Galerie Buchholz, with Danh Vo, Cologne, Germany
2011 Peter Hujar | Paul Thek, Maureen Paley, London

 

Selected Group Exhibitions
2023 Saints and Sinners, Guts Gallery, London, UK

2023 outer view, inner world, Maureen Paley: Morena di Luna, Hove, UK
2023 Bohemia: History of an Idea, 1950-2000, Kunsthalle Praha, Prague, Czech Republic
2022 Seeing and Being Seen: Photography from the Loeb in Honor of the First Vassar Pride, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Centre, New York, USA
2022 Every Moment Counts, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Norway
2022 that other world, the world of the teapot. tenderness, a model, Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover, Germany
2022 Hollow Earth: Art, Caves & The Subterranean Imaginary, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK; travelling to The Glucksman, Cork, Ireland and RAMM, Exeter, UK
2022 Manifesto of Fragility – The Many Lives and Deaths of Louise Brunet, Musée d'art contemporain, Lyon, France
2022 Take a Walk on The Wild Side, New Galerie, Paris, France
2022 Studio to Stage: Music Photography from the Fifties to the Present, Pace Gallery, New York, NY, USA
2022 Stuff, Pace Gallery, New York, NY, USA
2022 Candy Cane: New Images of Women, Shoot the Lobster, New York, USA
2021 Fraenkel Gallery, Pop-Up, San Francisco, CA, USA
2021 Get Lifted!, Karma, New York, NY, USA
2021 I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING WHO CAN I BE NOW, The Modern Institute, Glasgow, Scotland
2021 Mother!, Kunsthalle Mannheim, Germany
2021 Paul Thek: Relativity Clock, Alexander and Bonin, New York, NY, USA
2020 Vantage Points: Contemporary Photography from the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Asheville Art Museum, Asheville, North Carolina, USA
2020 Out of frame and landscapes in the agnès b. collection, La Fab., Paris, France
2020 I’m Not the Only One, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, USA

2020 Masculinities: Liberation Through Photography, Barbican, London, UK, travelling to Gropius Bau, Berlin, Germany,
2020 Les Rencontres d’Arles, Arles, France; FOMU, Antwerp, Belgium (C)
2020 Her Story: A Century of Women Writers, National Portrait Gallery, The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA
2020 A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Pace, online exhibition