Inge Morath's Photographs. . .

   John Huston called her a “high priestess of photography,â€� and Philip Roth said she was “A seemingly harmless voyeur. You hardly know your guard is down and your secret recorded until it is too late.â€�

     Both men were describing Inge Morath, the great Austrian-born photographer who became the wife of Arthur Miller and then closely identified with Connecticut, where Miller had long had a country house. Now in a small show – “A Portfolio by Inge Morathâ€� – at Joie de Livres Gallery in Salisbury Wines, Merideth McGregor brings us a sampling of the work that brought Morath both respect and fame.

   Morath was a student in Germany during World War II, and she learned languages easily. After the war she became a translator and writer for a magazine in Munich. She met photographer Ernst Haas in Vienna, brought his work to the magazine and then wrote articles to accompany Haas’ pictures. Eventually both photographer and writer were invited by Robert Capa to move to Paris and join Magnum Photos, the male-dominated photography cooperative.

   In 1951 on a trip to Venice, Morath began using a camera herself. Her inspiration was Henri Cartier-Bresson, whom she had studied from contact sheets while writing and editing for Magnum. Her style, particularly in its seemingly effortless revelation of atmosphere, character and barely stilled emotion derives directly from him. After Venice she almost never put her camera down.

   Morath published over 30 monographs during her long life, and the Joie de Livres show draws on pictures from various times and places. The most famous ­— indeed the most famous photograph Morath ever published – is of “Mrs. Eveleigh Nash, Buckingham Palace Mall, London,â€� 1961. Morath’s assignment from Magnum was to capture the life of Mayfair and Belgravia, so she caught Nash, like an aging actress swathed in fur and wearing a large hat, as she stares at us from the back seat of her limousine, perhaps puzzled by a privileged world forever changed by the war and socialism. The composition itself is fascinating: There seem to be two planes, with hazy figures in the distance on the left and Nash, her driver and two passing men – who inhabit a separate world – to the right. It is brilliant and more so the longer you study it.

   A picture of “Dona Mercedes Formica de Llosent y Maranonâ€� on a Madrid balcony with the old city behind her is the essence of aristocratic heritage. Dressed in black with a mantilla draped over a high comb, Dona Mercedes is both proud and wistful. Very different from Lola Ruiz de Vilato, the earthy, open-faced sister of Pablo Picasso, captured in another photo.

   There is a charming shot of Morath’s Connecticut neighbor, Alexander Calder, a dead ringer for Norman Mailer here, working on a small sculpture in an open field with cows grazing in the distance. You can imagine the small piece he is molding enlarged to monumental size someday and placed outdoors with other Calders.

   Morath took a haunting picture of Adlai Stevenson and Eleanor Roosevelt at the United Nations in 1961. They are close together – she seated in a chair, he on the desk – absorbed in listening to a translation of some apparently unpleasant speech. The picture is dark, and the mood, heavy with apprehension.

   There are three wonderful, atmospheric shots from the Soviet Union, including one of Leo Tolstoy’s bedroom that reminds me of the great writer’s strange last years at Yasnaya Polyana. The exuberant, cluttered salon in the house of Lev Kassil in Moscow with its collection of happy people is a jarring contrast to the Tolstoy. And sleigh horses in the snowy, frozen Moscow countryside might have been a still shot from “Dr. Zhivago.â€�

   This is a show of pictures well worth viewing and, even more, studying. Morath’s greatness comes through stronger the more you look.

     “Inge Morathâ€� will continue at Joie de Livres Gallery in the rear of Salisbury Wines, 19 Main St., in Salisbury, until the new year. Hours are Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

   For information,  860-435-0530.