The earliest photograph Peter Hujar printed for exhibition was a 1955 portrait of his beloved English teacher Daisy Aldan. “One of my aims,” Aldan once said, “is to encourage and teach people to work with imagination through the living hand, because there is something pretty wonderful that emanates from the work that the living hand has touched.” Hujar’s pictures still feel handmade, and alive. Known for his atmospheric and often erotic portraiture, he always floated just outside the mainstream—