Gesture, pose, dress, and environment all play crucial roles in portraiture. But what do they really tell us about their subjects? While some portraits attempt to capture the essence of a person, others intentionally portray a type. In this selection of photographs spanning over eighty years, four photographers (August Sander, Pieter Hugo, Xavier Tavera, and Richard Avedon) present different approaches to staging a portrait, each providing rich clues for viewers to fashion the nature of identity in the mind’s eye.