David Armstrong Contacts

American photographer David Armstrong (1954–2014), best known for his intimate black-and-white portraiture, is recognised as a member of the ‘Boston School’ of photography, a group of artists who studied in the city from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s.

This publication marks the first posthumous exhibition catalogue of Armstrong’s work. Organised and edited by the David Armstrong Archive, the catalogue is published to coincide with exhibitions at Kunsthalle Zurich in 2024 and LUMA Arles in 2025. The book focuses exclusively on his never-before-published contact prints, featuring 286 images reproduced at a 1:1 scale. The prints, from between 1974 and 1994, showcase many of his iconic portraits of friends in Provincetown, Boston, and downtown Manhattan, including those of Nan Goldin, Cookie Mueller, Mark Morrisroe, Rene Ricard, Gary Indiana, Jack Pierson, Tabboo! (Stephen Tashjian), Christopher Wool, Philip-Lorca DiCorcia, Teri Toye, Greer Lankton, Johnny Thunders, and others.