"Hujar:Contact," opening at the Morgan Library and Museum, features more than 110 contact sheets and 20 enlargements drawn from the institution's collection of over 5,700 contact sheets by the photographer. The exhibition traces Peter Hujar's career from his work as a studio assistant through his emergence as an independent artist in the East Village.
Hujar, who lived from 1934 to 1987, began filing and numbering his contact sheets at age 21. His meticulous record-keeping allows the exhibition to document his progression through two decades as a studio assistant beginning in 1955, his work as a freelancer in fashion, music and advertising in the late 1960s, and his mature period from 1974 until his death.
Many contact sheets on display bear editing marks showing Hujar's decisions about cropping and printing. The markings reveal which exposures he selected for enlargement and provide insight into his creative process.
The contact sheets themselves function as pictorial narratives, particularly in his portrait work, according to the exhibition materials. They document not only Hujar's artistic development but also shifts in his social world across the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.