Look Inside
Which art books, prints and posters are available by and about this artist? Here is a sample of items of interest to a typical collector:
Portraits in Life and Death is the only book of photographs published by Peter Hujar during his lifetime.
The twenty-nine portraits of creative people―ranging from William Burroughs, Susan Sontag, and John Waters to Larry Ree, founder of the Trocadero Gloxinia Ballet Company, and T.C. (whose identity is unclear)―possess a haunting beauty and degree of psychological examination that is both offbeat and riveting. Following the portraits come eleven images that can only be described as devastating: pictures of semi-preserved, clothed bodies of nineteenth-century Sicilians found in the arid catacombs beneath a church in Palermo.
There is no necessary connection in the photographs themselves or between the two sections of the book, yet the pictorial progression from life to death is an emblem of the journey we all take. The living subjects seem to be meditating on the mortality that is limned with such profound effect in the catacomb pictures. In different ways, both groups of images speak to the basic fears and emotions that we carry with us, somewhere beyond our consciousness. After viewing this extraordinary book, it is almost impossible not to make those connections and interpretations or be moved by Hujar’s consistent ability to convey what appears to be the inner spirit of his subjects. Even so, an air of nonchalance, even gaiety, hovers over the photographs.
The book is odd, oblique, sometimes opaque, and certainly deeply felt; but it sticks to the mind like a burr. It will be noticed. Once seen, it cannot be forgotten.
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 1986, 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. This volume provides captivating insight into a master at work, forming an immersive chronicle of Hujar’s poignant efforts to connect, through photography, with the creative communities that defined his life, outlook, and art.
Co-published with the Morgan Library & Museum, New York, on the occasion of the exhibition ‘Hujar:Contact’, on show from 22 May–25 October 2026
