The new exhibit at Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, "Aspects of Portraiture," is divided into three categories: traditional portraiture, symbolic portraiture and narrative portraiture. But the exhibit shows that even within the categories, there are categories.
Four charming traditional portraits of Roxbury sculptor Alexander Calder show different aspects of one man. One, taken in 1975 by Pedro Guerrero, shows Calder smiling in a ratty straw hat. In "Last Photograph of Calder," a 1975 photo by Calder's neighbor and friend, Inge Morath, he glares at the camera, silently ordering Morath to go away. In Morath's 1964 "Calder with Maquette for Stabile with Gunrest," he proudly presents his creation, a field full of cows in the background. In Morath's "Calder at Roxbury, 1969," he hides behind one of his sculptures.
