The lost art of portraits

The great British photographer Bill Brandt’s 1952 portrait of Sir Alec Guinness – showing the actor in a smartly tailored dark suit against an interior background of modernist architecture – is pure formal composition. Guinness’s face, with the smooth, well-lit curvature of his left cheek, could well have been carved by Brancusi.

“The Presence of Portraits” is at Corkin Gallery, Distillery District, 55 Mill St., Bldg. 61 until March 2.