At an opening at the Morgan Library & Museum celebrating exhibitions of Peter Hujar’s photographs and Tennessee Williams’ memorabilia, a gentleman in a maroon jacket marveled that the Morgan, known for collections of old master drawings and manuscripts would now show photography, especially of the type created by Hujar. While Williams’ scripts and Playbills form the kind of closeted history right up the Morgan’s proverbial alley, well, Hujar’s work is something else. A decade older than Robert Mapplethorpe and Nan Goldin, Hujar too documented the downtown demimonde, its denizen in drag. Hujar’s portraits—black & white-- haunt, testament to the era before AIDS, a vibrant artistic world in the autumn of life.
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