Portraits in Life and Death

A new edition of the photography classic by legendary Peter Hujar, with a foreword by Pulitzer Prize winner Benjamin Moser. Portraits in Life and Death is the only book of photographs published by Peter Hujar in his alive. The twenty-nine portraits of creators - by William Burroughs, Susan Sontag and John Waters to Larry Ree, founder of the Trocadero Gloxinia Ballet Company, and TC (whose identity is unclear) - possess a beauty haunting and a degree of psychological examination that is both offbeat and fascinating. portraits are followed by eleven images that can only be described as Devastating: Photos of clothed and semi-preserved bodies of Sicilians from the 19th century century discovered in the arid catacombs beneath a church in Palermo. There is no necessary connection between the photographs themselves or between the two sections of the book, but the pictorial progression from life to death is a emblem of the journey we all make. The living subjects seem to meditate on mortality which is depicted with such profound effect in the images of catacombs. In different ways, the two groups of images speak of fears and fundamental emotions that we carry within us, somewhere beyond our consciousness. After looking at this extraordinary book, it is almost impossible not to make these connections and interpretations or not to be moved by Hujar's consistent ability to convey what seems to be the spirit interior of his subjects. Despite this, an air of nonchalance, even of gaiety, hovers over the photographs. The book is strange, oblique, sometimes opaque, and certainly deeply felt; but it sticks to the mind like a smudge. It will be noticed. Once seen, it cannot be forgotten.