History of Art Ph.D. Student Olivia McCall Helps Organize Exhibit on Peter Hujar
September 21, 2026
Image courtesy of Olivia McCall. Photo credit: Janny Chiu
Prior to starting work on her Ph.D. as a student in Bryn Mawr's history of art department, Olivia McCall was the Edith Gowin Curatorial Fellow in the department of photography at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City from 2022 to 2024.
During her fellowship, McCall spent several weeks sorting through nine bankers' boxes containing nearly 6,000 contact sheets. She drafted the initial checklist for the exhibition, conducted extensive research in the Peter Hujar Papers housed at the Morgan, and revised and corrected the collection's finding aid. She also transcribed and annotated nearly 1000 entries from Hujar's negative registers or "job books" — an index of every photo session by the artist from 1954 to 1986—conducting intensive research to identify subjects, locations, events, and dates.
In addition to her work organizing material for the exhibition, McCall contributed to the exhibition catalog.
"This exhibition provides the most in-depth view into Hujar’s work and creative process to date, just by nature of its materials," says McCall. "The contact sheets were his working documents that bear his annotations; they provided him the first glance of what he had captured with his camera, from which point he would ultimately choose what to print."
While Hujar's work is most associated with the Downtown New York City scene of the 70s and 80s, his images have a timeless quality that affects present-day viewers, says McCall.
McCall's academic work focuses on artists bearing witness to the AIDS epidemic and queer experience in the 1970s–90s, with a focus on lens-based media. She chose to study at Bryn Mawr in large part to work with Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and Professor of History of Art Lisa Saltzman, a specialist in postwar and contemporary art, as well as the history and theory of photography.
"I feel very grateful to have landed at Bryn Mawr for my Ph.D.," she says. "I attended Barnard College for my undergraduate degree, so I already knew how special the environment of a women’s college can be. The history of art graduate cohort at Bryn Mawr is so warm and supportive, and the smaller scale of the graduate school allows for a more personal experience."
In addition to her graduate studies, McCall is currently the archive manager at the Peter Hujar Foundation.
