You Lookin' at Me?

What is this fascination we have with celebrity? We so badly want to see what the famous look like - why? Do we want to see if they look like us? Are we hoping to find flaws? Whether your celebrity of choice is Britney Spears or T.S. Eliot, we love to look.

It helps if the photographer is a very good one, because then - we assume - we'll see even more.

And such is the case in "Close Encounters": Irving Penn Portraits of Artists and Writers, which exhibits 67 of the master's black-and-white portraits from 1944 to 2006 at the Morgan Library in New York, which acquired them last year.

Here we find Salvador Dali, Saul Bellow, Stephen Sondheim, all in Penn's trademark straightforward, look-you-in-the-face style (all gelatin silver prints). With few exceptions - Aaron Copland sillhoutted at the piano, pencil to his chin (1965), Rudolph Nureyev, perversely dressed in a baggy overcoat (1965) - the portraits include no props or costumes. Instead, we have close-ups of bodies or, more often, faces, the camera fiercely demanding to see. Penn shows occasional playfulness, as in a 1972 portrait of Woody Allen made up as Charlie Chaplin, smelling a rose, or Vladimir Nabokov, barely visible behind a screen of high grass, chasing butterflies with a net (1966). But most of the portraits have a formality to them, less in design than in feel; there are no candids here. Penn's camera may not lie, but it may manipulate.

While Penn eschewed props, he did resort to other means of containing his subjects: In one series in the 1940s, he set people in the tight corner of two adjoining blank walls and let them pose at will. Thus we see Georgia O'Keeffe, hands behind her back, staring straight into the camera, showing just the hint of a smile; Truman Capote, wrapped in an overcoat, kneeling huddled on a chair; Marcel Duchamp striking a debonair pose, one foot forward, scarf tossed around his neck, smoking a pipe.

In the 1950s, Penn began closing in on his subjects. Some seemingly reacted by trying to stare down their aggressor; others appear to cooperate, as in a beautiful portrait of the aging French author Collette, a frizzy mop of hair surrounding a face in which lines are etched in heavy makeup (1951).

Everywhere the artist's hand, though subtle, is evident: Simone de Beauvoir, half her face cast in shadow, is a prim burgeoise matron in a wool suit jacket, her hair piled atop her head, a slight purse to her lips (1957).

While most of Penn's subjects are shown solo, some interesting pairs are included here. In a 1947 portrait, Oscar Hammerstein II, head in his hands, sits close to Richard Rodgers, chin in hand, both in dark suits and white shirts; in a 1960 photograph, the architect Frederick Kiesler is alongside artist Willem de Kooning, both in white shirts, elbows on a table, Kiesler to one side, looking down, de Kooning very much taking up more space, staring straight ahead at the camera, cigarette in one hand, ash about to drop.

Eyes play an increasingly important role in the later photographs. S.J. Perelman's eyes bulge behind glasses that clearly enlarge them; Isaac Bashevis Singer's head is turned, so we see just one eye; similarly, Pablo Picasso's face, half shrouded behind a high collar and wide-brimmed hat, features one glittering eye, staring right at the camera.

Ingmar Bergman holds both his eyes shut (his wedding ring visible on his finger), while Arthur Miller holds just one eye closed, behind his glasses. An elderly Louise Bourgeois (1992) shuts her eyes entirely, turns her head away and rests her chin on her hands, as if to say, Go away, I'm thinking about something else. Or trying to.

One of the most recent (and remarkable) portraits in the show is a hulking Jasper Johns, facing the camera (and the viewer) in what can only be seen as a nearly confrontational posture: eyes staring, mouth resolute, face thrust forward. As if to say, You lookin' at me?

And we are. As one viewer was overheard to say, "Isn't it amazing? All these incredible icons." She added loudly to her companion, "And yet they all made such messes of their personal lives."

Well, maybe so. Britney Spears isn't the only one to pay the price of celebrity. For anyone who is interested in the literary and artistic movers and shakers of the latter half of the 20th century, this is a fascinating show.