Hujar Contact

A compelling visual artefact celebrating New York artist Peter Hujar's life, career, and relationship with the communities he moved and worked within Collects never-before-seen highlights from Hujar's archive of 5,783 contact sheets, dating from 1954 to 1987 , with the job books in which he recorded more than a thousand photoshoots, all contextualised by texts by Joel Smith Released alongside the opening of the exhibition 'Hujar:Contact' at the Morgan Library & Museum, New York, on show from 22 May to 25 October 2026 Hujar:Contact explores the Morgan Library & Museum's extensive archive of original contact sheets and job books made by the beloved photographer Peter Hujar 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'.