The Singular Vision of Peter Hujar
| BY ALASTAIR CURTIS | 24 FEB 25
Artist, Photographer and Printer Gary Schneider reflects on his relationship with Hujar
“Artist and master printer Gary Schneider was a close friend and occasional subject of Peter Hujar, the New York-based photographer famed for his empathetic photographs of artist and writer friends, drag performers, nude lovers, farm animals and cityscapes. Since Hujar’s death in 1987, Schneider has been entrusted with making prints of his late friend’s work, a process he describes in engrossing detail in his recent book Peter Hujar Behind the Camera and in the Darkroom (2024). More than three decades spent poring over Hujar’s photographs has given Schneider an unrivalled insight into how their austere elegance was achieved. Here, he remembers what it was like to work with Hujar, the ‘eccentricities’ of his prints and how their years of friendship and collaboration inspired his co-curation, with John Douglas Millar, of ‘Eyes Open in the Dark’ at Raven Row in London – the first comprehensive UK survey of Hujar’s photographs to date. – Alastair Curtis”
Excerpt from the interview with Gary Schneider:
“GS : I was young, and I was in awe of him. I thought he was a truly brilliant artist. In the studio session, you can see that, at first, I was trying to make ‘Peter Hujar’ images for him. He didn’t direct. He just waited. He allowed you to come to him. It was your job, as the performer, to trust him fully – to trust that he knew what he was doing and to allow it to happen, rather than to try to make it happen….”