Pictures of you ‘Likeness’ at the ICA, ‘Pretty Sweet’ at the DeCordova, ‘Sets & Series’ at the MFA BY RANDI HOPKINS

Society portraiture has a quaint air about it. Copley and Gainsborough and Sargent come to mind, but then so does Andy Warhol, who brought the whole enterprise into the modern age in the 1960s, expressing our complex cultural obsession with fame and celebrity in silkscreen images of members of high society, power politics, and the silver screen. In the process of famously associating with the famous, Warhol glamorized the image of the artist as well. His legacy forms one of the many threads connecting the works in "Likeness: Portraits of Artists by Other Artists," which opens at the Institute of Contemporary Art on January 19. It’s the high society of artists themselves that is the subject of this exhibition, artists depicting other artists in ways that are revelatory not only of their chosen subjects but also of the image makers.

"Likeness" presents work by more than 35 contemporary artists, each with a distinct sense of what it is that constitutes a portrait, and each selecting his or her subjects according to a personal artistic vision. Elizabeth Peyton, who’s renowned for her sexy, red-lipped paintings of friends and stars (many of her subjects are both), offers a sweet portrayal of a dandyish young David Hockney that both pays its respects to the elder statesman and makes him her own. Nan Goldin photographs David Wojnarowicz; Neil Winokur snaps Ms. Goldin as well as Robert Mapplethorpe and Andy Warhol. Others take a different tack: Chuck Close has for years used his inner circle of artist friends to create his signature larger-than-life portraits, identifying by first name only folks who are much better known for the images and objects they create than for their own likenesses. Meanwhile, downstairs at the ICA, also opening on January 19, "Momentum 3: Kanishka Raja" will present new work by a young artist whose large-scale paintings of interior spaces incorporate references to their specific site at the ICA that include steeply pitched staircases, looming balconies, and jutting mezzanines.

Although the hospitable title might suggest otherwise, it’s not all sweetness and light at "Pretty Sweet: The Sentimental Image in Contemporary Art," which opens at the DeCordova Museum on January 15. This big show (more than 100 artworks, by 33 artists) trains a critical eye on a genre that might on the surface appear not to go too far below the surface. The press release promises that the museum will be transformed into a "refuge for the expression of the sweeter, softer, more tender emotions," but though many artists in the show use the likes of hearts and flowers to evoke a pleasurable emotional response (an approach that’s been out of artistic favor since Norman Rockwell), others reveal a deep ambivalence toward sentimentality, letting the Big Bad Wolf into Grandma’s house in a way that promises drama and not a little discomfort.

Also analytical, but in a cooler vein, works by more than 50 artists come to the walls at the Museum of Fine Arts in "Sets, Series, and Suites: Contemporary Prints," which opens on January 19. There is work by Warhol — the guy loved repetition, from soup cans stacked on the grocery shelves to multiple takes on Liz Taylor — and by other great recent printmakers including Ellsworth Kelly, Sol LeWitt, and Vija Celmins. Printmaking and seriality may go together like a horse and carriage, but the results here are anything but expected.

"Likeness: Portraits of Artists by Other Artists" and "Momentum 3: Kanishka Raja" are at the Institute of Contemporary Art, 955 Boylston Street in Boston, January 19 through May 1; call (617) 266-5152. "Pretty Sweet: The Sentimental Image in Contemporary Art" is at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, 51 Sandy Pond Road in Lincoln, January 15 through April 15; call (781) 259-8355. "Sets, Series, and Suites: Contemporary Prints" is at the Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Avenue in Boston, January 19 through May 30; call (617) 267-9300.