Hujar:Contact – Peter Hujar's job books annotated by Olivia McCall

Hujar:Contact is a significant new work in an unfolding canon of work by the late photographer Peter Hujar, co-published with the Morgan Library & Museum to accompany a major exhibition of the same name at the museum in New York from May to October 2026.

The mammoth volume reveals many never-before-seen images from the Morgan Library & Museum’s extensive archive of original contact sheets and job books made by 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 and 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.

Mack, 364pp, 22cm x 29cm, illustrated flexicover with linen spine, first edition, 2026