Cornered

In 1948, portrait photographer Irving Penn built a narrow corner in his studio and invited his subjects to inhabit this space in any way they chose to pose. (See three examples above and to the left, from CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, the stunning exhibit of Penn portraits of artists, musicians, and writers now showing at the Morgan Library and Museum on Madison Avenue (at 38th Street) in Manhattan.) The ensuing series of Penn's 1948 black-and-white portrait photographs thus has impeccable formal consistency. What is remarkable -- and perhaps inevitable -- is that each individual approaches the tightly constraining corner so differently and perhaps so characteristically. Personality and emotion are dramatically revealed by the smallest details of posture, gesture, and gaze.