{"data":{"id":"3952","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":3952,"topgoose_id":3190,"tms_id":3952,"display_name":"Peter Hujar","sort_name":"Hujar Peter","display_date":"1934–1987","begin_date":"1934","end_date":"1987","biography":"\u003cp\u003eDuring the period from the early 1970s, when he left the field of commercial photography in which he had worked for two decades, until his death, Peter Hujar produced a poignant body of black- and-white photographic work. His themes encompassed landscapes, interiors, and still lifes, but he is best known for his portraiture. In his East Village loft, Hujar documented the artists, writers, musicians, and performers of the era’s demimonde in moments of repose and candor. Some subjects are unknown, and others eminent—among them \u003ca href=\"/artists/1384\"\u003eAndy Warhol\u003c/a\u003e, Susan Sontag, \u003ca href=\"/artists/7653\"\u003eWilliam Burroughs\u003c/a\u003e, and Hujar’s partner, the artist \u003ca href=\"/artists/3598\"\u003eDavid Wojnarowicz\u003c/a\u003e. Without a trace of pretense or artifice, Hujar captures something of each sitter’s essence or personality. This intimacy is rendered all the more affecting by the elegant formal precision of his compositions, which often evoke classical sources.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/collection/works/8412\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eCandy Darling on Her Deathbed\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003epictures the transgender actress Candy\nDarling, a downtown denizen and member\nof Andy Warhol’s coterie who was a muse\nto artists and musicians. Hujar shot this\nphotograph of Darling in bed at a Manhattan\nhospital shortly before her death in 1974,\nat the age of twenty-nine, from Hodgkin’s\nlymphoma. Ringed by flowers, she appears\nat once resigned and serene, her fragile\nbeauty still intact; as the philosopher of art\nArthur Danto wrote, Hujar “has photographed\nher the way she would have wanted to be\nshown.” Mortality and death would become\nmore explicit concerns in Hujar’s work in\nthe 1980s as many of his friends and fellow\nartists suffered from HIV; in 1987 he died\nof an AIDS-related illness.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":false,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500001826","wikidata_id":"Q2075836","created_at":"2017-08-31T10:52:54.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-03-31T07:04:50.611-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/3952/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/3952/exhibitions"}}}}