All About Peter

Fayette (Cockette), photographed by Peter Hujar, 1971.

Six months after the release of Ira Sachs’s film Peter Hujar’s Day, three exhibitions in New York give long-overdue attention to the American photographer

By Osman Can Yerebakan

Farm animals were Peter Hujar’s first subjects. The photographer’s early years were spent with his Ukrainian mother and grandparents on a farm in central New Jersey, which exposed him to the emotionality of nature. Decades before his lens moved between nocturnal vagabonds in the East Village and names such as Diana Vreeland, William Burroughs, and Fran Lebowitz, the young man realized the power of his eye. He could monumentalize any subject, even if it was an aloof cow or a dilapidated shack. READ ON