Artist: Peter Hujar

This is the first posthumous exhibition to have access to the complete span of Peter Hujar’s work. Hujar was a leading figure in the downtown scene of 1970s and early 80s New York, but at his death in 1987 from AIDS-related pneumonia his photography was largely unknown to a broader artworld. Now it is widely admired for the emotional affinity it demonstrates for its subjects, and its austere formal elegance.

Hujar’s principal concern was forms of portraiture – of his friends and denizens of the downtown scene, whom he encountered on the street, shot in his apartment studio or sought out backstage. He also gave attention to architectural, landscape and street photography, and animal portraiture. Eyes Open in the Dark concentrates on his later work, when his emergence from a debilitating depression in 1976 brought about a new expansiveness. The exhibition also reveals the darkening tone of his photography in the early 1980s, as the AIDS crisis devastated his community, and his work entered into dialogue with the younger artist David Wojnarowicz.

Peter Hujar – Eyes Open in the Dark is curated by Hujar’s biographer John Douglas Millar, and his close friend, the artist and master printer Gary Schneider, with Alex Sainsbury. As well as lifetime prints it will include prints from little known works specially prepared by Gary Schneider, working closely with the artist’s Estate.