Peter Hujar, Susan Sontag, 1975. Photography, Pigmented ink print

Susan Sontag, the author of On Photography and Regarding the Pain of Others, was captured through Peter Hujar’s now-iconic photograph Susan Sontag in a relaxed yet pensive pose. A friend and supporter of his work as well as his subject, Sontag wrote the introduction for Hujar’s only book published during his lifetime: Portraits in Life and Death.

Before American photographer Peter Hujar passed away from AIDS in 1987, he was a part of a group of New York-based artists, writers, and musicians who defined the downtown scene in the 1970s. Often described as uncompromising in personality and aesethetic, Hujar’s black-and-white photographs captured landscapes, animals, and, most memorably, people.