In 1974, the acclaimed writer Linda Rosenkrantz made a fascinating request of her longtime friend, photographer Peter Hujar, then 40: document a single day of his life by narrating it into her tape recorder. This wasn’t Rosenkrantz’s first venture into capturing real-life narratives. Her 1968 book, ‘Talk,’ compiled countless hours of intimate conversations with two friends in East Hampton during the summer of 1965. She transcribed and meticulously edited these dialogues into what critic Leo Lerman called a ‘fictional nonfiction book.’ ‘Talk’ deftly explored complex themes like love, art, finance, psychoanalysis, and sexuality, highlighting how genuine intimacy between friends can be a truly revolutionary act. Rosenkrantz’s subsequent project, involving artist Chuck Close, her cleaning woman, and others, showcased her ingenious approach to revealing the ordinary yet often private rhythms of daily existence, bringing clarity to how people truly live their lives.
Hujar, primarily recognized for his captivating photography of New York’s queer bohemian scene, chose December 18, 1974, as his day to record. Manhattan at this time faced economic uncertainty, yet it pulsed with vibrant energy and endless opportunities for the bold young individuals inhabiting its decaying buildings and vacant industrial spaces. As singer and poet Lydia Lunch vividly recalled, ‘New York at that moment was bankrupt, poor, dirty, violent, drug-infested, sex-obsessed — delightful.’
Hujar masterfully paints a picture of this city as he recounts a day filled with the grind of a freelance photographer’s life. From Linda Rosenkrantz’s East 94th Street apartment, where his monologue unfolds, he describes waking late, meeting an Elle editor at his studio-loft on Second Avenue, and then heading to the Lower East Side to photograph Allen Ginsberg. Hujar humorously recalls of the Beat poet, ‘He sat down in the lotus position, looking very Buddha, right in the doorway, and started to chant… And I really thought, ‘Well, I can’t interrupt God.” Later, back in his studio, Hujar develops the photos, noting Ginsberg ‘gave out nothing,’ before tackling other assignments. His day also includes naps, quick runs for groceries and Chinese takeout, and constant interruptions from friends like writers Susan Sontag, Fran Lebowitz, and Vince Aletti (who even asks to use his shower) – many of whom would become subjects for his seminal 1976 monograph, ‘Portraits in Life and Death,’ his only published book.
Tragically, thirteen years later, in 1987, Hujar passed away at 53 due to AIDS-related complications. This intimate transcript, originally a chronicle of an ordinary day in his vibrant youth, gained profound new meaning. Rosenkrantz’s endeavor proved to be more than just a capture of Hujar’s distinctive, unyielding spirit; it transformed into a vital time capsule, offering a poignant glimpse into the life of a queer artist thriving in the exhilarating and relatively uninhibited era before the AIDS epidemic claimed so many of his generation.
Remarkably, this crucial historical document almost remained lost forever. However, in the late 2010s, over three decades after Hujar’s passing, Linda Rosenkrantz, then in her mid-80s and residing in Los Angeles, rediscovered the typewritten collaboration she and her dear friend had created nearly half a century earlier. She generously donated it to the Morgan Library & Museum in New York, which already housed Hujar’s extensive collection of papers, over 160 prints, and close to 6,000 black-and-white contact sheets.
What followed felt like a stroke of destiny, or perhaps, as I sometimes wondered while researching this piece, the subtle intervention of Hujar’s own spirit. Shortly after Rosenkrantz’s donation, a young art historian, Marcelo Gabriel Yáñez, stumbled upon the transcript during his research at the Morgan’s Peter Hujar Collection. He shared it with photographer and publisher Jordan Weitzman, who was so captivated that he pinned it to his studio wall, envisioning a future book. Two years later, Weitzman’s partner, Francis Schichtel, who had previously worked with the Peter Hujar Archive, met Rosenkrantz for lunch in Los Angeles. He proposed publishing the document, leading to the 2021 release of ‘Peter Hujar’s Day’ by Weitzman’s Magic Hour Press.
That same autumn, director Ira Sachs found the book at Les Mots à la Bouche, a legendary LGBTQ+ bookstore in Paris, while filming his romantic drama ‘Passages’ (2023). Deeply affected by ‘Peter Hujar’s Day,’ Sachs decided to approach Ben Whishaw, then 44 and co-starring in ‘Passages,’ about collaborating on an ‘art project.’ Both men shared a profound appreciation for and fascination with queer artistic history, especially Hujar’s oeuvre. Whishaw himself owned Hujar’s 1980 ‘Seated Self-Portrait Depressed,’ depicting a contemplative, striking Hujar in the nude. The resulting film, ‘Peter Hujar’s Day,’ featuring Whishaw as Hujar and Rebecca Hall, 43, as Rosenkrantz, is set to premiere next month, promising a remarkably accurate portrayal that captures Hujar’s sharp wit and meticulous detail.
Hujar’s reputation has steadily risen over the past few years. The Morgan Library & Museum hosted a 2017 exhibition of his photographs, ‘Speed of Life,’ which toured four countries. Last year, Liveright reissued ‘Portraits in Life and Death,’ and John Douglas Millar’s biography, ‘Nude Opera: A Life of Peter Hujar,’ is slated for publication in 2029. However, the upcoming film is poised to propel Hujar’s subtly exquisite and technically masterful work even further into public consciousness, cementing his deserved position among 20th-century photography giants like Diane Arbus, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Nan Goldin.
The film will also introduce a wider audience to Linda Rosenkrantz herself. Throughout her diverse career, spanning over five decades, her fascination with conversation, dialogue, and language in all its forms — including gossip, names, and words — has manifested in various works. Beyond ‘Talk’ and ‘Peter Hujar’s Day,’ her bibliography includes the 1999 memoir ‘My Life as a List: 207 Things About My (Bronx) Childhood,’ ten co-authored baby name books with Pamela Redmond (notably the 1994 bestseller ‘Beyond Jennifer & Jason’), and ‘Telegram!’ (2003), a brief history recounted through over 400 examples of the obsolete communication method. Currently, Rosenkrantz is compiling ‘Ex,’ a collection of recorded dinner conversations with former boyfriends from the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Linda Rosenkrantz was not only Peter Hujar’s cherished friend (he once called her ‘my only real sweetheart’) and perhaps his most frequently photographed subject—with over a thousand existing portraits of her, by her own estimate—but their profound friendship also deeply influenced her own creative endeavors. Both the book and the upcoming film clearly demonstrate how their shared conversations, which defined their lives together, have continued to resonate through their art, nearly four decades after Hujar’s passing. My extensive discussions with Rosenkrantz revealed a powerful truth: for every celebrated artist, especially those who meet a premature end, there exists a devoted friend, writer, or steward of their legacy who ensures their memory endures. As Stephen Koch, 84, executor of the Hujar estate, wisely states, ‘No matter who you are, whether Peter Hujar or Robert Rauschenberg, if no one is there to mind the story, you are going to be forgotten.’ This role of ‘minder’ is, in its quiet dedication, as crucial, and perhaps even more honorable, than that of the famous artist. Rosenkrantz, a naturally modest individual who transformed her exceptional listening skills into a meaningful career, has wholeheartedly embraced this calling. Observing Hujar’s photographs of her, it became clear that the photographer, who always had an acute awareness of his own future—as Koch puts it, ‘He thought, ‘Well, I’ll be successful after I die”—understood that Rosenkrantz would be instrumental in safeguarding his artistic heritage.
In late April, a month before our initial meeting, Rosenkrantz emailed me her author photo taken by Hujar for the 1968 release of ‘Talk.’ The black-and-white image that appeared on my laptop depicted a striking woman with dark, flipped hair and a soulful gaze. ‘I bear no resemblance to that woman! I hope you don’t go into shock!’ Rosenkrantz playfully warned, ever self-effacing. ‘I’m not even sure I looked like that then. Transformed by Peter’s love.’
Upon my arrival at her Santa Monica apartment, she greeted me at the door dressed in black pants, a black t-shirt adorned with a white typewriter graphic, and bright pink Converse sneakers. It was the day after her 91st birthday, and a vase of cheerful yellow flowers, a gift from a friend, graced her coffee table. ‘I certainly don’t feel that age,’ she declared, ‘Or even 90.’ Her youthful attire, striking red bob haircut (like a red velvet cupcake), and mischievous spirit collectively radiated the energy of a much younger individual.
For the past two years, she has resided in a cozy stucco one-bedroom apartment, nestled beside a small courtyard featuring an orange tree and a lavender bush. Her daughter, Chloe Finch, 50, lives in an upstairs unit. In 2022, Rosenkrantz’s husband of nearly 50 years, Christopher Finch—a writer, critic, and painter from Guernsey—died after a prolonged battle with Parkinson’s disease. Following his passing, Rosenkrantz moved from the Woodland Hills home in Los Angeles where they had lived for 25 years (they relocated to L.A. in 1990 for their teenage daughter, Chloe, to attend a specialized school for dyslexic students). Despite spending a third of her life in Los Angeles, Bronx-born and raised Rosenkrantz openly expresses a deep longing for New York. ‘I regret leaving,’ she confessed. ‘I think it was definitely a mistake to have left.’
After a short and dissatisfying period in an assisted living facility (‘I hated it. It’s activities and things — writing groups with these old ladies about their memoirs…’), she found her current apartment. However, Rosenkrantz, a self-proclaimed ‘saver of everything,’ remains unsettled by the upheaval. She has, in essence, become a living archive and repository of memories, not just for Hujar and her late husband, but for a vibrant past New York art scene and its figures. Many of her cherished mementos are missing. ‘So much stuff didn’t come with me,’ she sighs. ‘Every day, I discover something I don’t have.’ During our conversations, she lamented the absence of specific letters, her husband’s artwork, his old London appointment books (detailing lunches with luminaries like Hockney and Bacon), and her original ‘Talk’ manuscript – all precious remnants of a long, influential life at the heart of art and culture, now largely confined to storage.
Nevertheless, we settled onto a pale pink couch, sifting through fabric-covered boxes filled with photographs, letters, newspaper clippings, and other keepsakes. On the wall above us, a small, curated display of Hujar’s black-and-white photographs hung. Among them was a portrait of Rosenkrantz with her elegant mother, Frances, sporting a meringue-like blond bouffant; her mother, Rosenkrantz shared, lived to be 100. Another showed her best friend, artist and filmmaker Susan Brockman, who passed from lung cancer in 2001 and was once Willem de Kooning’s companion, relaxing in a grassy field. A third captured Rosenkrantz and Finch in Central Park – she in a flowing black, spiderweb-patterned poncho with permed dark hair, he in a plaid shirt and blazer.
I inquired about her feelings, being one of the few surviving members of her circle of artist friends. ‘I guess I feel privileged — lucky,’ she reflected, ‘But it’s also depressing.’ After a brief pause, she added, ‘This happens to everybody when they get to be 90. They don’t have that many surviving friends.’
Despite the losses, Hujar’s presence is profoundly felt through these photographs and artifacts. He and Rosenkrantz first crossed paths in 1956, shortly after her graduation from the University of Michigan, where she studied English alongside journalist Janet Malcolm. Hujar had just moved in with one of Rosenkrantz’s dearest friends, the painter Joseph Raffael. Rosenkrantz reminisces about countless evenings spent in the couple’s ‘immaculate’ Upper West Side apartment, a space filled with music, art, and plants, notable for its ‘antique wooden clock’ and a ‘bookcase chock-full of books,’ all overseen by their large gray cat, Alice B. Toklas. The trio would often dissect Rosenkrantz’s romantic life or exchange amusing anecdotes about her colleagues at Parke-Bernet Galleries, where she worked in editorial and public relations. ‘We talked about them endlessly,’ Rosenkrantz recalls of the office personalities, ‘all these old people who worked at Parke-Bernet. They wanted to know everything about them.’ In 1967, she even transformed the company’s internal publication into Auction Magazine, which she edited for half a decade.
We uncovered a collection of letters exchanged between Rosenkrantz and Hujar in 1958, when he was in Florence, Italy, on a Fulbright scholarship with Raffael, and she was working on Madison Avenue. ‘Oh, it’s all complaining about my life,’ she admitted with a shy laugh when I requested to read them. One letter, simply dated ‘1 a.m. Saturday night,’ expressed her profound dissatisfaction: ‘I was sitting in my doctor’s office last night and suddenly I looked at him and realized that I felt no contact with him, or with anyone else, the whole thing seemed so pointless; my whole life, going to that flunky job every day, eating a lonely hamburger at night and sitting here like an ugly 65-year-old librarian old maid, imprisoning myself with my goddamned lists and Christmas cards, hungering after that lunatic I’m not even interested in, washing my hair, cooking.’ Eventually, Raffael and Hujar invited her to join them at the ancient stone villino they had rented in Bellosguardo, overlooking Florence. Rosenkrantz later described this period as ‘one of the most enchanted periods of [her] life,’ characterized by ‘writing and painting by day and endless conversations about matters high and low at night.’
Among the treasures we found was a stack of photos from Rosenkrantz’s 1973 wedding, Hujar’s personal gift to his friend. One image shows Rosenkrantz and Finch at City Hall, she clutching her bouquet as he places the ring on her finger. The couple, who shared homes in various New York neighborhoods—from her uptown apartment to the West Village and later Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill—reportedly enjoyed an idyllic marriage. ‘They set the bar high for me because they never argued,’ recalls Chloe, their adopted daughter from 1975. ‘Up until my dad died, they would sit on the couch together, arm in arm, watching movies.’
Rosenkrantz describes herself as Hujar’s ‘touch with a domestic life,’ a connection she believes cemented their bond. In an era where gay and straight social circles were more distinct, Rosenkrantz and her husband were among Hujar’s rare more conventional friends. ‘He would come over for dinner or on his way to cruise on the West Side,’ Rosenkrantz explains. ‘I don’t think he went anywhere else with a family.’ Hujar also grew close to Finch and developed a warm, avuncular relationship with Chloe. He famously captured Chloe at age 7, bouncing a tennis ball, a truly tender and iconic image, which he then gifted to Rosenkrantz, inscribed ‘To Ma and Pa Finch.’
Beneath the large-screen TV, where Rosenkrantz enjoys shows like ‘The Kardashians’ and ‘Project Runway,’ a collection of unframed Hujar photographs rests. One notable piece is a large group portrait featuring Rosenkrantz, Eva Hesse, Frederic Tuten, Paul Thek, and other prominent figures from the New York art scene. Documentary filmmaker Mark Obenhaus, who was a more distant acquaintance of this group, confessed his awe at ‘the kind of intimacy they had,’ a level he’d never encountered before. ‘They could talk about anything, absolutely anything — and did. Together, one-on-one, on the phone.’
The art of conversation among friends is Rosenkrantz’s enduring passion. ‘Realizing how gossipy my work is,’ she shared in one of the many emails exchanged over months. This, she explains, is why she appreciates platforms like Instagram: ‘It’s a gossip thing.’ She doesn’t mean gossip in a malicious way, but rather in the spirit writer Elizabeth Hardwick articulated to The Paris Review in 1985: ‘Gossip, or as we gossips like to say, character analysis.’
One could accurately describe Rosenkrantz as an artist whose primary medium is human speech. She approaches language as a found object, as evidenced in her 1974 piece, ‘Late ’74 on the Phone.’ In this work, she masterfully wove together conversational fragments from friends—such as ‘But I ignored you less than I did most people last night’ or ‘All those ’50s art writer types have broken blood vessels in their noses’—into a deconstructed, collage-like essay. Rosenkrantz herself often states that her work ‘is not writing, exactly.’ While I find her letters and memoir to be sharp, humorous, and beautifully crafted, it is undeniably true that in her most celebrated pieces, her genius lies in observing, refining, and structuring the intricate patterns of spoken language.
Her profound interest in language traces back to her early years. Among her keepsakes, we discovered her yearbook from New York’s esteemed High School of Music and Art (famously known as the ‘Fame’ school). Her senior quote, an excerpt from Elinor Wylie’s 1932 poem ‘Pretty Words,’ reads: ‘I love words opalescent, cool and pearly / Like midsummer moths, and honied words, like bees / Gilded and sticky, with a little sting.’ Her fascination with names developed even earlier. Though officially named Ruth Leila on her birth certificate, she was always called Laila, her Jewish name. So, when her kindergarten teacher used ‘Ruth,’ she vividly remembers her ‘identity was shattered.’ In her charming memoir, ‘My Life as a List,’ she recalls her mother granting her permission to ‘choose a completely new name,’ presenting her with various options beginning with ‘R’ and ‘L.’ Rosenkrantz ultimately selected ‘Linda,’ believing it sounded ‘so much shinier and more modern,’ unaware that it was soon to become ‘the most popular girl’s name in America.’ This formative experience, she explains, ignited her ‘lifelong fascination with names’ and transformed her into a ‘compulsive, lifelong listmaker.’
Rosenkrantz’s exceptional talent for capturing spoken language shines brilliantly in ‘Talk,’ where the witty banter between three friends—Rosenkrantz as Marsha, Raffael as Vincent, and actress Nancy Fish as Emily—mirrors the unpredictable flow of real conversation, with all its humor and quirks. The trio effortlessly shifts between subjects: one moment delving into declarations of love, the next playfully debating the art world, then pondering the calorie count of raisins. ‘I’m beginning to feel very alone here,’ Vincent remarks. ‘These peaches were not washed, I can feel the dirt on each one.’ Whether lounging on the beach or preparing dinner, their discussions navigate diverse tones—from profound to trivial, sacred to profane, intellectual to visceral. ‘No performance, nothing; it was real chemistry between the three of us,’ states Fish, who intentionally maintained anonymity for years, explaining, ‘I didn’t want my embarrassingly open mind to be public.’ (When asked if I could now reveal her identity, Fish, now 90 and residing at the Motion Picture Home in Woodland Hills for retired film industry professionals, simply responded, ‘That would be embarrassing if I did.’)
Immersing oneself in ‘Talk’ can feel intensely voyeuristic, akin to secretly listening in on a private therapy session. The book’s frank, probing, and sometimes raw dialogue (Emily’s memorable line: ‘He must have a beautiful little penis’) sparked considerable controversy upon its release. We chuckled over Rosenkrantz’s preserved, yellowed newspaper clippings, featuring sensational headlines like ‘In Talkathon They Tear Selves Limb to Limb,’ ‘Which Was Your Favorite Abortion?,’ and my personal favorite, ‘Three Swingers Probe Libidos.’ A note from her editor at Putnam, Harvey Ginsberg, summed it up perfectly: ‘Herewith the reviews so far. As predicted, they either love you or they hate you.’
When New York Review Books reissued ‘Talk’ in 2015 after decades out of print, it was met with widespread acclaim. As Judy Berman noted in The Guardian, ‘Rosenkrantz captures the psychodrama of all-consuming friendship with an honesty that qualifies as its own kind of boldness.’ The cultural landscape had finally evolved to embrace Rosenkrantz’s avant-garde concept, now commonplace with reality television, pervasive social media self-narratives, and the rise of autofiction. Yet, the enduring power of ‘Talk’ lies in Rosenkrantz’s remarkable absence of solipsism. She assumed the role not of protagonist, but of a keen observer and chronicler, serving as a channel for others’ experiences. She fostered an environment where her subjects could express themselves with uninhibited honesty, free from judgment, shame, or embarrassment—a level of freedom that, in today’s more restrictive climate, feels truly groundbreaking.
While Peter Hujar was celebrated primarily as a portrait artist, his lens captured a diverse array of subjects, including nudes, animals, the New York cityscape, and even the ancient catacombs of Palermo, Italy. Regardless of the subject—be it a cluster of stark, silvery trees, a solitary cow, or the evocative, Hopper-esque glow of a gas station at night—his photographs consistently evoked the profound stillness and inherent solitude characteristic of a portrait. As Joel Smith, photography curator at the Morgan Library, observed, ‘The signature move in his art is to lavish a portraitist’s attention upon a subject that defies it.’
This distinctive approach is vividly present in ‘Peter Hujar’s Day,’ where Hujar’s spoken recollections coalesce into a unique form of self-portraiture. ‘It’s like he’s translating what his photography does into words, both allowing himself to be a subject and making himself a subject at the same time,’ notes Andrew Durbin, 36, author of the upcoming biography of Hujar and Thek, ‘The Wonderful World That Almost Was.’
Beyond a personal reflection, Hujar’s uninhibited narration of his day as a working artist also captures the essence of a city on the precipice of profound social upheaval. It portrays downtown New York as a ‘lost world,’ as writer and translator Benjamin Moser aptly described it, with the looming shadow of AIDS—a devastation no one could have foreseen. In Ira Sachs’s film, the mid-1970s city itself becomes a central character. Sachs visited Rosenkrantz in Los Angeles, delving into her archive of old photographs, and loosely recreated her former apartment with its distinct potted plants and French doors. Within this intimate setting, the two characters navigate the dining room, kitchen, bedroom, and even the rooftop, engaged in continuous conversation, while the sounds of honking horns and sighing truck brakes drift in from the bustling city outside.
Ultimately, the film serves as a moving homage to a friendship that blossomed in an era defined by in-person interactions and phone calls. Witnessing the actors embody these roles highlights the deeply collaborative spirit that underpinned not just their artistic endeavor, but their entire relationship: Rosenkrantz consistently listened, posed insightful questions, and gently encouraged Hujar to open up. In preparation, Rebecca Hall spoke with Rosenkrantz by phone, even recording her conversations to accurately capture her Bronx accent. ‘I wanted to get a sense of her voice,’ Hall explained. ‘I wanted the stories.’ However, Hall recounts that Rosenkrantz promptly diverted the conversation away from herself, asking instead, ‘What’s the name of your child? And why did you choose that name?’ Hall laughs, adding, ‘She is just by nature a curious listener. And there’s a quiet heroism in that.’
‘OK, so is it boring?’ Hujar asks around a third of the way through the interview, after meticulously detailing to his friend all the outstanding payments he’s owed for various photography assignments.
‘No,’ Rosenkrantz reassures him, ‘It’s not boring at all to me.’