Peter Gujar: Rialto

"Peter Gujar: Rialto" is a catalog for an exhibition at the Ukrainian Museum in New York, compiled and curated by Peter Doroshenko.

The publication presents 77 exceptional works by the famous American photographer of Ukrainian origin, Peter Gujar. These photographs cover the first 15 years of his creative career, a significant part of which is connected with life in the "Ukrainian village" of New York, the modern East Village.

The catalog includes not only a preface — a curatorial study of Gujar's work — but also three interviews by Peter Doroshenko with the artist's closest friends (Linda Rosenkrantz, Vince Aletti, Steven Koch), as well as an essay by Tim Blanks.

Peter Doroshenko notes that he has studied Gujar's work for 36 years, and after being appointed director of the Ukrainian Museum, he made organizing this exhibition a priority. The exhibition "Peter Gujar: Rialto" focuses on reinterpreting three key series of works from the first fifteen years of his photographic career, many of which have never been exhibited before. The series "Southbury" (1957), "Florence" (1958), and "Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo" (1963) are covered in depth for the first time. The exhibition also pays tribute to the works for which Gujar is best known: black-and-white portraits of thinkers, artists, and dancers of the New York bohemian center where he lived and worked.

Peter Gujar (1934–1987) was a renowned photographer, recognized for his black-and-white portraits of friends, lovers, and members of the New York underground. Born in Trenton, New Jersey, and raised in New York City, Gujar was a first-generation Ukrainian-American. He spent much of his childhood with his immigrant grandmother, whose Ukrainian heritage and family environment profoundly influenced his life and shaped his identity and artistic vision.