Peter Hujar
American, 1934-1987
Palermo Catacombs #10 (Girl with Flowers)
INV-2662
Peter Hujar
American, 1934-19871963
Palermo Catacombs #10 (Girl with Flowers)
Peter Hujar American, 1934-1987 →photographyphotograph
Date
1963
Medium
Gelatin silver print
Dimensions
Image: 38.4 × 38.3 cm (15 1/8 × 15 1/8 in.); paper: 50.8 × 40.4 cm (20 × 15 15/16 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Promised gift of Randall Kroszner and David Nelson
In 1963, while traveling in Italy, Hujar photographed bodies at the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo. From 1599 to the 1930s, the corpses of the elite of Sicily were preserved—frequently framed, sometimes behind glass—for family members to visit. The bodies remain there to this day. In these works Hujar showed the eerie beauty that lies in this attempt to capture the essence of life in death and reflected on photography’s association with memorialization.
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