Hujar:Contact

Now Available for Pre-Order! Books will ship mid-May.

A captivating insight into a master at work, forming an immersive chronicle of Peter Hujar’s efforts to connect, through photography, with the creative communities that defined his life, outlook, and art.

Hujar:Contact explores the Morgan Library & Museum’s extensive archive of original contact sheets and job books made by the beloved photographer Peter Hujar (1934–1987) between 1954 and 1987, which come together to form an enthralling visual document of the artist’s creative process. Hujar’s empathetic eye focused in on varying subjects—crowds of protest, damaged relics, farm animals—but, above all, he was preoccupied with making portraits of the overlapping circles of artists, writers, and underground luminaries he moved within in New York. Accompanying critical texts by Joel Smith establish a chronology of Hujar’s contact sheets, presenting an artist developing, experimenting with, and refining his practice against the tumultuous cultural politics and sea changes of gay life conveyed by the words “Stonewall” and “AIDS.”

Throughout his career, Hujar recorded more than a thousand photo shoots in his job books. These documents, transcribed and annotated by Olivia McCall, illuminate the contact sheets, rich in never-before-seen images as well as the earliest iterations of Hujar’s most iconic works, including portraits of Susan Sontag, David Wojnarowicz, Candy Darling, Gary Indiana, Fran Lebowitz, and Paul Thek. 

Published by the Morgan Library & Museum in association with MACK.

This catalogue accompanies the exhibition Hujar:Contact on view at the Morgan Library & Museum from May 22 through October 25, 2026.