Peter Hujar, World Trade Center, Twilight, 1976

Peter Hujar, American, 1934–1987: The World Trade Center, Twilight, 1976. Gelatin silver print, 37.5 x 37.5 cm. Collection of Richard and Ronay Menschel © 1987, The Peter Hujar Archive LLC. Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery NY / Photo by Bruce M. White

Peter Hujar made this photograph in the year he published Portraits in Life and Death, the only monograph issued in his lifetime. In every genre he practiced, Hujar’s instincts were those of a portraitist, balancing his critical viewpoint against the central role that every subject plays in its own life story. By foregrounding the Woolworth Tower (Cass Gilbert, 1914) in this skyward-angled view, Hujar casts the Twin Towers as both the latest example of Manhattan’s infatuation with height and the final negation of Gothicism in skyscraper design.