“You immediately see the clumsy elegance of a dog, the tragic gaze of a cow, the physical mass of a black horse, the ludicrous, coquettish turn of a goose, but on second examination you realise that each animal bears the weight of the same tragic and irrevocable mortality as Hujar’s human sitters.”
—Hripsimé Visser, Peter Hujar: A Retrospective, 1994As exemplified here, Peter Hujar’s animal portraits embody a unique empathy for his subjects, depicting the essence of each animal. Having spent his early childhood on his grandparents’ farm in New Jersey, Hujar photographed animals with the same intimacy and respect as he did his friends. To achieve this closeness, he would approach slowly, speaking softly over a long period to build a rapport and soothe the subject into stillness. This rare lifetime print with delicate textures and powerful chiaroscuro effect demonstrates Hujar’s incredible technical skill in the darkroom.
Although Hujar has annotated ‘ED 1/3’ on the verso of the current print, the Peter Hujar Archive knows of only two extant lifetime prints of this image – the other print is unsigned.
