An image is not available here yet.
View at the museum ↗Candy Darling on Her Deathbed
Peter Hujar1973
- Attribution
- Peter Hujar American, 1934-1987
- Medium
- Vintage gelatin silver print
- Physical dimensions
- Image: 26.7 × 26.7 cm (10 1/2 × 10 1/2 in.); Paper: 35.6 × 28 cm (14 × 11 in.)
- Credit line
- Mary and Leigh Block Endowment and Wentworth Greene Field Memorial Endowment funds
Museum metadata is available under CC0. Image availability and rights are separate; consult the source record.
Source rights statement: Public-domain image eligibility not established by this export
View the museum record ↗From the museum
Hujar made this portrait several weeks before Candy Darling’s death from leukemia at the age of 29. Darling, a transgender actress, is perhaps best known as one of Andy Warhol’s superstars; members of this eclectic social circle appeared in Warhol’s experimental films. Despite being in a hospital bed, Darling wears a full face of makeup and is carefully framed by flowers. In a note sent to Hujar after the photo shoot, Darling expressed her eagerness for the pictures to appear in Interview magazine because her “fans would feel cheated if they didn’t get to see what I looked like in my hospital bed.” This iconic picture brings together Hujar’s interest in the reclining figure, the specter of death within life, and the juxtaposition of glamour and the harsh realities of the body.
Description: Art Institute of Chicago · CC BY 4.0