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Charles Thomas Close (July 5, 1940 – August 19, 2021) was an American painter, visual artist, and photographer who made massive-scale
photorealist Photorealism is a genre of art that encompasses painting, drawing and other graphic media, in which an artist studies a photograph and then attempts to reproduce the image as realistically as possible in another medium. Although the term can b ...
and abstract portraits of himself and others. Close also created photo portraits using a very large format camera. He adapted his painting style and working methods in 1988, after being paralyzed by an occlusion of the anterior spinal artery.


Early life and education

Chuck Close was born in
Monroe, Washington Monroe is a city in Snohomish County, Washington, United States. It is located at the confluence of the Skykomish, Snohomish, and Snoqualmie rivers near the Cascade foothills, about northeast of Seattle. Monroe's population was 19,699 as o ...
. His father, Leslie Durward Close, died when Chuck was eleven years old. His mother's name was Mildred Wagner Close. As a child, Close had a
neuromuscular A neuromuscular junction (or myoneural junction) is a chemical synapse between a motor neuron and a muscle fiber. It allows the motor neuron to transmit a signal to the muscle fiber, causing muscle contraction. Muscles require innervation to ...
condition that made it difficult to lift his feet and a bout with nephritis that kept him out of school for most of sixth grade. Even when in school, he did poorly due to his dyslexia, which was not diagnosed at the time. Most of his early works were very large portraits based on photographs, using photorealism or
hyperrealism Jean Baudrillard ( , , ; 27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) was a French sociologist, philosopher and poet with interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as ...
, of family and friends, often other artists. Close said he had prosopagnosia (face blindness), and suggested that this condition is what first inspired him to do portraits. In an interview with
Phong Bui Phong H. Bui (born September 17, 1964, in Huế, Vietnam) is an artist, writer, independent curator, and Co-Founder and Artistic Director of ''The Brooklyn Rail,'' a free monthly arts, culture, and politics journal. Bui was named one of the "100 ...
in '' The Brooklyn Rail'', Close described an early encounter with a Jackson Pollock painting at the Seattle Art Museum: "I went to the Seattle Art Museum with my mother for the first time when I was 14. I saw this Jackson Pollock drip painting with aluminum paint,
tar Tar is a dark brown or black viscous liquid of hydrocarbons and free carbon, obtained from a wide variety of organic materials through destructive distillation. Tar can be produced from coal, wood, petroleum, or peat. "a dark brown or black b ...
,
gravel Gravel is a loose aggregation of rock fragments. Gravel occurs naturally throughout the world as a result of sedimentary and erosive geologic processes; it is also produced in large quantities commercially as crushed stone. Gravel is classifi ...
and all that stuff. I was absolutely outraged, disturbed. It was so far removed from what I thought art was. However, within 2 or 3 days, I was dripping paint all over my old paintings. In a way I've been chasing that experience ever since." Close attended Everett Community College in 1958–1960.Chuck Close
Crown Point Press, San Francisco.
Local writer
John Patric John Patric (May 22, 1902 – August 31, 1985) was an American writer. He was a contributing writer for ''National Geographic (magazine), National Geographic'' during the mid to late 1930s and early 1940s and was the author of two books. His 194 ...
was an early anti-establishment intellectual influence on him, and a role model for the iconoclastic and theatric artist's persona Close learned to project in subsequent years. In 1962, Close received his B.A. from the
University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle ...
in Seattle. In 1961, he won a coveted scholarship to the Yale Summer School of Music and Art, and the following year entered the graduate degree program at Yale University, where he received his MFA in 1964. Among Close's classmates at Yale were
Brice Marden Brice Marden (born October 15, 1938) is an American artist generally described as Minimalist, although his work may be hard to categorize. He lives and works in New York City; Tivoli, New York; Hydra (island), Hydra, Greece; and Eagles Mere, Penn ...
, Vija Celmins,
Janet Fish Janet Fish (born May 18, 1938) is a contemporary American realist artist. Through oil painting, lithography, and screenprinting, she explores the interaction of light with everyday objects in the still life genre. Many of her paintings include ...
, Richard Serra,
Nancy Graves Nancy Graves (December 23, 1939 – October 21, 1995, in Massachusetts) was an American sculptor, painter, printmaker, and sometime- filmmaker known for her focus on natural phenomena like camels or maps of the Moon. Her works are included in ...
, Jennifer Bartlett,
Robert Mangold Robert Mangold (born October 12, 1937) is an American minimalist artist. He is also father of film director and screenwriter James Mangold. Early life and education Mangold was born in North Tonawanda, New York. His mother, Blanche, was a d ...
, and Sylvia Plimack Mangold. After Yale, he studied at the
Academy of Fine Arts Vienna The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (german: link=no, Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien) is a public art school in Vienna, Austria. History The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna was founded in 1692 as a private academy modelled on the Accademia di Sa ...
on a Fulbright grant.Chuck Close
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
, New York.
When he returned to the United States, he worked as an art teacher at the University of Massachusetts. Close moved to New York City in 1967 and established himself in SoHo.


Work


Style

Throughout his career, Close expanded his contribution to
portraiture A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this re ...
through the mastery of such varied drawing and painting techniques as ink, graphite, pastel, watercolor, conté crayon, finger painting, and stamp-pad ink on paper; printmaking techniques, such as
mezzotint Mezzotint is a monochrome printmaking process of the '' intaglio'' family. It was the first printing process that yielded half-tones without using line- or dot-based techniques like hatching, cross-hatching or stipple. Mezzotint achieves tonalit ...
, etching,
woodcuts Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas tha ...
, linocuts, and silkscreens; as well as handmade paper collage,
Polaroid Polaroid may refer to: * Polaroid Corporation, an American company known for its instant film and cameras * Polaroid camera, a brand of instant camera formerly produced by Polaroid Corporation * Polaroid film, instant film, and photographs * Polar ...
photographs,
daguerreotypes Daguerreotype (; french: daguerréotype) was the first publicly available photographic process; it was widely used during the 1840s and 1850s. "Daguerreotype" also refers to an image created through this process. Invented by Louis Daguerre an ...
, and Jacquard tapestries. His early airbrush techniques inspired the development of the
ink jet printer Inkjet printing is a type of computer printing that recreates a digital image by propelling droplets of ink onto paper and plastic substrates. Inkjet printers were the most commonly used type of printer in 2008, and range from small inexpensi ...
.Lyle Rexer (March 12, 2000)
Chuck Close Rediscovers the Art in an Old Method
'' The New York Times''.
Close had been known for his skillful brushwork as a graduate student at Yale University. There, he emulated Willem de Kooning and seemed "destined to become a third-generation
abstract expressionist Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of t ...
, although with a dash of Pop iconoclasm". After a period in which he experimented with figurative constructions, Close began a series of paintings derived from black-and-white photographs of a female nude, which he copied onto canvas and painted in color. As he explained in a 2009 interview with Cleveland, Ohio's ''
The Plain Dealer ''The Plain Dealer'' is the major newspaper of Cleveland, Ohio, United States. In fall 2019, it ranked 23rd in U.S. newspaper circulation, a significant drop since March 2013, when its circulation ranked 17th daily and 15th on Sunday. As of Ma ...
'' newspaper, he made a choice in 1967 to make art hard for himself and force a personal artistic breakthrough by abandoning the paintbrush. "I threw away my tools", Close said. "I chose to do things I had no facility with. The choice not to do something is in a funny way more positive than the choice to do something. If you impose a limit to not do something you've done before, it will push you to where you've never gone before." One photo of Philip Glass was included in his resulting black-and-white series in 1969, redone with watercolors in 1977, again redone with stamp pad and fingerprints in 1978, and also done as gray handmade paper in 1982. Working from a gridded photograph, he built his images by applying one careful stroke after another in multi-colors or grayscale. He worked methodically, starting his loose but regular grid from the left hand corner of the canvas. His works are generally larger than life and highly focused. "One demonstration of the way photography became assimilated into the art world is the success of photorealist painting in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is also called super-realism or hyper-realism and painters like
Richard Estes Richard Estes (born May 14, 1932 in Kewanee, Illinois) is an American artist, best known for his photorealism, photorealist paintings. The paintings generally consist of reflective, clean, and inanimate city and geometric Landscape painting, lan ...
,
Denis Peterson Denis Peterson (born New York, 1944) is an American hyperrealist painter whose photorealist works have been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, Butler Institute of American Art, Tate Modern, Springville Museum of A ...
,
Audrey Flack Audrey L. Flack (born May 30, 1931) is an American artist. Her work pioneered the art genre of photorealism and encompasses painting, sculpture, and photography. Flack has numerous academic degrees, including both a graduate and an honorary doct ...
, and Close often worked from photographic stills to create paintings that appeared to be photographs. The everyday nature of the subject matter of the paintings likewise worked to secure the painting as a realist object." Close said he had prosopagnosia, also known as face blindness, in which he had difficulty recognizing new faces. By painting portraits, he was better able to recognize and remember faces. On the subject, Close said, "I was not conscious of making a decision to paint portraits because I have difficulty recognizing faces. That occurred to me twenty years after the fact when I looked at why I was still painting portraits, why that still had urgency for me. I began to realize that it has sustained me for so long because I have difficulty in recognizing faces." Although his later paintings differed in method from his earlier canvases, the preliminary process remained the same. To create his grid work copies of photos, Close put a grid on the photo and on the canvas and copied cell by cell. Typically, each square within the grid is filled with roughly executed regions of color (usually consisting of painted rings on a contrasting background) which give the cell a perceived 'average' hue which makes sense from a distance. His first tools for this included an airbrush, rags, razor blade, and an eraser mounted on a power drill. His first picture with this method was ''Big Self Portrait'', a black and white enlargement of his face to a canvas, made in over four months in 1968, and acquired by the Walker Art Center in 1969. He made seven more black and white portraits during this period. He has been quoted as saying that he used such diluted paint in the
airbrush An airbrush is a small, air-operated tool that atomizes and sprays various media, most often paint but also ink and dye, and foundation. Spray painting developed from the airbrush and is considered to employ a type of airbrush. History ...
that all eight of the paintings were made with a single tube of Mars Black acrylic. His later work branched into non-rectangular grids,
topographic map In modern mapping, a topographic map or topographic sheet is a type of map characterized by large- scale detail and quantitative representation of relief features, usually using contour lines (connecting points of equal elevation), but histori ...
style regions of similar colors,
CMYK The CMYK color model (also known as process color, or four color) is a subtractive color model, based on the CMY color model, used in color printing, and is also used to describe the printing process itself. The abbreviation ''CMYK'' refers ...
color grid work, and using larger grids to make the cell by cell nature of his work obvious even in small reproductions. The ''Big Self Portrait'' is so finely done that even a full page reproduction in an art book is still indistinguishable from a regular photograph.


"The Event"

On December 7, 1988, Close felt a strange pain in his chest. That day he was at a ceremony honoring local artists in New York City and was waiting to be called to the podium to present an award. Close delivered his speech and then made his way across the street to
Beth Israel Medical Center Mount Sinai Beth Israel is a 799-bed teaching hospital in Manhattan. It is part of the Mount Sinai Health System, a nonprofit health system formed in September 2013 by the merger of Continuum Health Partners and Mount Sinai Medical Center, and a ...
where he had a seizure which left him paralyzed from the neck down. The cause was diagnosed as a spinal artery collapse. He had also experienced neuromuscular problems as a child. Close called that day "The Event". For months, Close was in rehab strengthening his muscles with physical therapy; he soon had slight movement in his arms and could walk, yet only for a few steps. He relied on a wheelchair thereafter. Close spoke candidly about the effect disability had on his life and work in the book '' Chronicles of Courage: Very Special Artists'' written by
Jean Kennedy Smith Jean Ann Kennedy Smith (February 20, 1928June 17, 2020) was an American diplomat, activist, humanitarian, and author who served as United States Ambassador to Ireland from 1993 to 1998. She was a member of the Kennedy family, the eighth of nine ...
and George Plimpton and published by Random House.Chronicles of Courage: Very Special Artists
.
However, Close continued to paint with a brush strapped onto his wrist, creating large portraits in low-resolution grid squares created by an assistant. Viewed from afar, these squares appear as a single, unified image which attempt photo-reality, albeit in
pixelated Pixelization (British English, pixelisation) or mosaic processing is any technique used in editing images or video, whereby an image is blurred by displaying part or all of it at a markedly lower resolution. It is primarily used for censorsh ...
form. Although the paralysis restricted his ability to paint as meticulously as before, Close had, in a sense, placed artificial restrictions upon his hyperrealist approach well before the injury. That is, he adopted materials and techniques that did not lend themselves well to achieving a photorealistic effect. Small bits of irregular paper or inked fingerprints were used as media to achieve astoundingly realistic and interesting results. Close proved able to create his desired effects even with the most difficult of materials to control. Close made a practice, during his final years, of portraying artists who are similarly invested in portraiture, like
Cecily Brown Cecily Brown (born 1969) is a British painter. Her style displays the influence of a variety of contemporary painters, from Willem de Kooning, Francis BaconScott, Sue (2013). "Cecily Brown" in ''The Reckoning: Women Artists of the New Millennium ...
,
Kiki Smith Kiki Smith (born January 18, 1954) is a West German-born American artist whose work has addressed the themes of sex, birth and regeneration. Her figurative work of the late 1980s and early 1990s confronted subjects such as AIDS and gender, whil ...
,
Cindy Sherman Cynthia Morris Sherman (born January 19, 1954) is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters. Her breakthrough work is often co ...
, and Zhang Huan.


Prints

Close was a printmaker throughout his career, with most of his prints published by Pace Editions, New York. He made his first serious foray into print making in 1972, when he moved himself and family to San Francisco to work on a
mezzotint Mezzotint is a monochrome printmaking process of the '' intaglio'' family. It was the first printing process that yielded half-tones without using line- or dot-based techniques like hatching, cross-hatching or stipple. Mezzotint achieves tonalit ...
at
Crown Point Press Crown Point Press is a long-established printmaking workshop, primarily creating and publishing etched, intaglio prints. Located in San Francisco since 1986, Crown Point Press was first established in 1962 in Richmond California by Kathan Brown. ...
for a three-month residency. To accommodate him, Crown Point found the largest copper plate it could (36 inches wide) and purchased a new press, allowing Close to make a work that was 3 feet by 4 feet. In 1986 he went to Kyoto to work with Tadashi Toda, a highly respected woodblock printer. In 1995, curator
Colin Westerbeck Colin Leslie Westerbeck Jr. is a curator, writer, and teacher of the history of photography. Before moving to Los Angeles, where he has taught at UCLA and USC, he was curator of photography at the Art Institute of Chicago. He is a regular contri ...
used a grant from the
Lannan Foundation The Lannan Literary Awards are a series of awards and literary fellowships given out in various fields by the Lannan Foundation. Established in 1989, the awards are meant "to honor both established and emerging writers whose work is of exceptional ...
to bring Close together with Grant Romer, director of conservation at the
George Eastman House The George Eastman Museum, also referred to as ''George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film'', the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography and one of the world's oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in ...
. From that time on, Close also continued to explore difficult photographic processes such as daguerreotype in collaboration with Jerry Spagnoli and sophisticated modular/cell-based forms such as tapestry. Close's
photogravure Photogravure (in French ''héliogravure'') is a process for printing photographs, also sometimes used for reproductive intaglio printmaking. It is a photo-mechanical process whereby a copper plate is grained (adding a pattern to the plate) and ...
portrait of artist
Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...
, "Robert" (1998), appeared in a 2009 exhibition at the Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington, New York, featuring prints from Universal Limited Art Editions. In the daguerreotype photographs, the background defines the limit of the image plane as well as the outline of the subject, with the inky pitch-black setting off the light, reflective quality of the subject's face.Chuck Close
/ref> In a 2014 interview with Terrie Sultan, Close said: "I've had two great collaborators in the God knows how many years I've been making prints. One was the late Joe Wilfer, who was called the 'prince of pulp' … and now I'm working with Don Farnsworth in Oakland at…
Magnolia Editions Magnolia Editions, also known as Magnolia Tapestry Project and Magnolia Press, was founded in 1981 and is a fine art studio and printshop, located in Oakland, California. Magnolia Editions publishes fine art projects, including unique and editions w ...
: I do the watercolor prints with him, I do the tapestries with him. These are the most important collaborations of my life as an artist." Since 2012, Magnolia Editions has published an ongoing series of archival
watercolor Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...
prints by Close which use the artist's grid format and the precision afforded by contemporary digital printers to layer water-based pigment on Hahnemuhle rag paper such that the native behavior of watercolor is manifested in each print: "The edges of each
pixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the sm ...
bleed with cyan, magenta, and yellow, creating a kind of three-dimensional fog effect behind the intended color swatches." The watercolor prints are created using more than 10,000 of Close's hand-painted marks which were scanned into a computer and then digitally rearranged and layered by the artist using his signature grid. These works were called Close's first major foray into digital imagery: with the artist himself having said, "It's amazing how precise a computer can be working with light and color and water." A New York Times review noted that the "exaggerated breakdown of the image, particularly when viewed at close range," that characterizes Close's work "is also apparent in... atercolor printportraits of the artists
Cecily Brown Cecily Brown (born 1969) is a British painter. Her style displays the influence of a variety of contemporary painters, from Willem de Kooning, Francis BaconScott, Sue (2013). "Cecily Brown" in ''The Reckoning: Women Artists of the New Millennium ...
,
Kiki Smith Kiki Smith (born January 18, 1954) is a West German-born American artist whose work has addressed the themes of sex, birth and regeneration. Her figurative work of the late 1980s and early 1990s confronted subjects such as AIDS and gender, whil ...
,
Cindy Sherman Cynthia Morris Sherman (born January 19, 1954) is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters. Her breakthrough work is often co ...
,
Kara Walker Kara Elizabeth Walker (born November 26, 1969) is an American contemporary painter, silhouettist, print-maker, installation artist, filmmaker, and professor who explores race, gender, sexuality, violence, and identity in her work. She is best ...
and Zhang Huan.""A Review of 'Chuck Close – Recent Works,' at Guild Hall Museum."
Schwendener, Martha: The New York Times, September 27, 2013. Retrieved on October 8, 2013.


Tapestries

Close's wall-size tapestry portraits, in which each image is composed of thousands of combinations of woven colored thread, depict subjects including Kate Moss,
Cindy Sherman Cynthia Morris Sherman (born January 19, 1954) is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters. Her breakthrough work is often co ...
,
Lorna Simpson Lorna Simpson (born August 13, 1960) is an American photographer and multimedia artist. She came to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s with artworks such as ''Guarded Conditions'' and ''Square Deal''. Simpson is most well-known for her work in c ...
, Lucas Samaras, Philip Glass, Lou Reed, Roy Lichtenstein, and Close himself. They are produced in collaboration with Donald Farnsworth. Although many are translated from black-and-white daguerreotypes, all of the tapestries use multiple colors of thread. No printing is involved in their creation; colors and values appear to the viewer based on combinations of more than 17,800 colored warp (vertical) and weft (horizontal) threads, in an echo of Close's typical grid format. Close's tapestry series began with a 2003 black-and-white portrait of Philip Glass. In August 2013 he debuted two color self-portraits at Guild Hall in
East Hampton, New York The Town of East Hampton is located in southeastern Suffolk County, New York, at the eastern end of the South Shore of Long Island. It is the easternmost town in the state of New York. At the time of the 2020 United States census, it had a tot ...
."Chuck Close: Up Close at Guild Hall."
Weinreich, Regina: the Huffington Post. August 10, 2013. Retrieved October 8, 2013.
In reviewing this exhibition, Marion Weiss wrote .."Close's Jacquard tapestries are not obviously fragmented, but are created by repeating multicolor warp and weft threads that are optically blended. Thus, portraits of Lou Reed and Roy Lichtenstein, for example, seem 'whole.' It's only when we get closer that we see the individual threads, which are woven together."


Commissions

In 2010, Close was commissioned by
MTA Arts & Design MTA Arts & Design, formerly known as Arts for Transit and Urban Design, is a commissioned art program directed by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for the transportation systems serving New York City and the surrounding region. Since 198 ...
to create twelve large mosaics, totaling more than , for the 86th Street subway station on the New York City Subway's Second Avenue Line in Manhattan. ''
Vanity Fair's Vanity is the excessive belief in one's own abilities or attractiveness to others. Prior to the 14th century it did not have such narcissistic undertones, and merely meant ''futility''. The related term vainglory is now often seen as an archaic ...
'' 20th Annual Hollywood edition in March 2014 featured a portfolio of 20
Polaroid Polaroid may refer to: * Polaroid Corporation, an American company known for its instant film and cameras * Polaroid camera, a brand of instant camera formerly produced by Polaroid Corporation * Polaroid film, instant film, and photographs * Polar ...
portraits of movie stars shot by Close, including Robert De Niro, Scarlett Johansson,
Helen Mirren Dame Helen Mirren (born Helen Lydia Mironoff; born 26 July 1945) is an English actor. The recipient of numerous accolades, she is the only performer to have achieved the Triple Crown of Acting in both the United States and the United Kingdom. ...
, Julia Roberts, and Oprah Winfrey. Close requested that his subjects be ready to be photographed without makeup or hair-styling and used a large-format 20x24" Polaroid camera for the close-ups. A fragment of Close's portrait of singer-songwriter Paul Simon was used as the cover art for his 2016 album '' Stranger to Stranger''. The right eye appears on the cover; the entire portrait is in the liner notes. Close donated an original print of his "Self Portrait" in 2002 to the
public library A public library is a library that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also civil servants. There are five fundament ...
in Monroe, Washington, his hometown.


Exhibitions

Close's first solo exhibition, held in 1967 at the University of Massachusetts Art Gallery, Amherst, featured paintings, painted reliefs, and drawings based on photographs of record covers and magazine illustrations. The exhibition captured the attention of the university administration which promptly closed it, citing the male nudity as obscene. The
American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
(ACLU) and the
American Association of University Professors The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is an organization of professors and other academics in the United States. AAUP membership includes over 500 local campus chapters and 39 state organizations. The AAUP's stated mission is ...
(AAUP) came to the defense of Close and a landmark court case ensued. A
Massachusetts Supreme Court The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) is the highest court in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Although the claim is disputed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the SJC claims the distinction of being the oldest continuously funct ...
Justice decided in favor of the artist against the university. When the university appealed Close chose not to return to
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- most p ...
, and ultimately the decision was overturned by an appeals court.Chuck Close: Nudes 1967–2014, February 28 – March 29, 2014
Pace Gallery The Pace Gallery is an American contemporary and modern art gallery with 9 locations worldwide. It was founded in Boston by Arne Glimcher in 1960. His son, Marc Glimcher, is now president and CEO. Pace Gallery operates in New York, London, Hong ...
, New York.
(Close was later awarded an Honorary Doctorate of the Arts by the University of Massachusetts in 1995.) Close credited the Walker Art Center and its then-director Martin Friedman for launching his career with the purchase of ''Big Self-Portrait'' (1967–1968) in 1969, the first painting he sold. His first one-man show in New York City was in 1970 at
Bykert Gallery Bykert Gallery was a contemporary art gallery in New York City between 1966 and 1975, run by Klaus Kertess (1940 - 2016) and Jeff Byers who had been classmates at Yale College, class of 1958. The gallery originally was located at 15 West West 57th ...
. His first print was the focus of a "Projects" exhibition at the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of th ...
in 1972. In 1979 his work was included in the Whitney Biennial and the following year his portraits were the subject of an exhibition at the Walker Art Center. His work has since been the subject of more than 150 solo exhibitions including a number of major museum retrospectives. After Close abruptly canceled a major show of his work scheduled for 1997 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art announced that it would present a major midcareer retrospective of the artist's work in 1998 (curated by Kirk Varnedoe and later traveling to the Hayward Gallery, London, and other galleries in 1999). In 2003 the
Blaffer Gallery Blaffer Art Museum is a non-collecting contemporary art museum located in the Arts District of the University of Houston campus. Housed in the university’s Fine Arts Building, it is part of the Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts. It was fo ...
at the
University of Houston The University of Houston (UH) is a Public university, public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the List of universities in Texas by enrollment, university in Texas ...
presented a survey of his prints, which travelled to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the following year. His most recent retrospective – "Chuck Close Paintings: 1968/2006", at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid in 2007 – travelled to the
Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst The Ludwig Forum for International Art is a museum for modern art in Aachen. It is based on the Ludwig Collection, which was brought together by the Aachen collector couple Irene and Peter Ludwig, and is supported by the Peter and Irene Ludwig Fou ...
in
Aachen, Germany Aachen ( ; ; Aachen dialect: ''Oche'' ; French and traditional English: Aix-la-Chapelle; or ''Aquisgranum''; nl, Aken ; Polish: Akwizgran) is, with around 249,000 inhabitants, the 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the 28th ...
, and the
State Hermitage Museum The State Hermitage Museum ( rus, Государственный Эрмитаж, r=Gosudarstvennyj Ermitaž, p=ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)ɨj ɪrmʲɪˈtaʂ, links=no) is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is the larges ...
in
St. Petersburg, Russia Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
. He also participated in almost 800 group exhibitions,Chuck Close Named 2009 Harman Eisner Artist In Residence
Aspen Institute The Aspen Institute is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1949 as the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. The institute's stated aim is the realization of "a free, just, and equitable society" through seminars, policy programs ...
.
including
documenta ''documenta'' is an exhibition of contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. The ''documenta'' was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgartenschau (Federal Horticultur ...
s V (1972) and VI (1977), the Venice Biennale (1993, 1995, 2003), and the
Carnegie International The Carnegie International is a North American exhibition of contemporary art from around the globe. It was first organized at the behest of industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie on November 5, 1896 in Pittsburgh. Carnegie established th ...
(1995). In 2013, Close's work was featured in an exhibit at White Cube in
Bermondsey Bermondsey () is a district in southeast London, part of the London Borough of Southwark, England, southeast of Charing Cross. To the west of Bermondsey lies Southwark, to the east Rotherhithe and Deptford, to the south Walworth and Peckham, ...
, London. "Process and Collaboration" displayed not only a number of finished prints and paintings but included plates, woodblocks, and mylar stencils which were used to produce a number of prints. In December 2014 his work was exhibited in Australia at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, which he visited. In 2016, Close's work was the subject of a retrospective at the
Schack Art Center Everett is the county seat and largest city of Snohomish County, Washington, United States. It is north of Seattle and is one of the main cities in the metropolitan area and the Puget Sound region. Everett is the seventh-largest city in the st ...
in Everett, Washington, where he attended high school and community college. Close's work is in the collections of most of the great international museums of contemporary art, including the
Centre Georges Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...
in Paris, the Tate Modern in London, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis who published ''Chuck Close: Self-Portraits 1967–2005'' coauthored with curators
Siri Engberg Siri ( ) is a virtual assistant that is part of Apple Inc.'s iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, macOS, tvOS, and audioOS operating systems. It uses voice queries, gesture based control, focus-tracking and a natural-language user interface to answer que ...
and
Madeleine Grynsztejn Madeleine Grynsztejn (born 1962) is the Pritzker Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Grynsztejn became director in 2008. Life and education Grynsztejn was born in Lima, Peru, and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, and London, England ...
.


Public profile


Recognition

The recipient of the
National Medal of Arts The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and patrons of the arts. A prestigious American honor, it is the highest honor given to artists and arts patrons ...
from President Bill Clinton in 2000, the New York State Governor's Art Award, and the Skowhegan Arts Medal, among many others, Close received over 20 honorary degrees including one from Yale University, his alma mater. In 1990, he was elected into the
National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote th ...
as an Associate Academician, and became a full Academician in 1992. New York City Mayor
Michael R. Bloomberg Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman, politician, philanthropist, and author. He is the majority owner, co-founder and CEO of Bloomberg L.P. He was Mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013, and was a ca ...
appointed the artist to the municipality's Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission, a body mandated by the City Charter to advise the mayor and the cultural affairs commissioner. Close painted President Clinton in 2006 and photographed President
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
in 2012. In 2010 he was appointed by Obama to the
President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities The President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH) was an advisory committee to the White House on cultural issues. It worked directly with the Administration and the three primary cultural agencies: the National Endowment for the Art ...
. He resigned from the President's Committee in August 2017, co-signing a letter of resignation that said in reference to President Donald Trump, "Ignoring your hateful rhetoric would have made us complicit in your words and actions." In 2005, composer Philip Glass wrote a musical portrait of Close. The composition, a 15-minute piece for solo piano, was the idea of
Bruce Levingston Bruce Levingston is an American concert pianist. Levingston was born and grew up in the Mississippi Delta. He was educated at Darlington School in Rome, Georgia, graduating in 1979. Levingston has performed many times at Carnegie Hall Car ...
, a concert pianist, who commissioned it through the Premiere Commission and who performed the piece at a recital at
Alice Tully Hall Alice Tully Hall is a concert hall at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in the Upper West Side neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The hall is named for Alice Tully, a New York performer and philanthropist whose donations assist ...
that year.


Art market

Close was represented by the
Pace Gallery The Pace Gallery is an American contemporary and modern art gallery with 9 locations worldwide. It was founded in Boston by Arne Glimcher in 1960. His son, Marc Glimcher, is now president and CEO. Pace Gallery operates in New York, London, Hong ...
(in New York City) from 1977, and subsequently by White Cube (in London) from 1999. Already in 1999, Close's ''Cindy II'' (1988), a portrait of the photographer
Cindy Sherman Cynthia Morris Sherman (born January 19, 1954) is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters. Her breakthrough work is often co ...
sold for $1.2 million, against a high estimate of $800,000. In 2005, ''John'' (1971–1972) was sold at Sotheby's to the
Broad Art Foundation Eli Broad ( ; June 6, 1933April 30, 2021) was an American businessman and philanthropist. In June 2019, ''Forbes'' ranked him as the 233rd-wealthiest person in the world and the 78th-wealthiest in the United States, with an estimated net worth of ...
for $4.8 million.


Fundraising and community service

In 2007, Close was honored by the New York Stem Cell Foundation and donated artwork for an exclusive online auction. In September 2012,
Magnolia Editions Magnolia Editions, also known as Magnolia Tapestry Project and Magnolia Press, was founded in 1981 and is a fine art studio and printshop, located in Oakland, California. Magnolia Editions publishes fine art projects, including unique and editions w ...
published two tapestry editions and three print editions by Close depicting President
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
. The first tapestry was unveiled at the
Mint Museum The Mint Museum, also referred to as The Mint Museums, is a cultural institution comprising two museums, located in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Mint Museum Randolph and Mint Museum Uptown, together these two locations have hundreds of collection ...
in North Carolina in honor of the Democratic National Convention. These tapestries and prints were sold as a fundraiser to support the Obama Victory Fund. A number of the works were signed by both Close and Obama. Close previously sold work at auction to raise funds for the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and
Al Gore Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic nom ...
. In October 2013, Close donated a watercolor print of Genevieve Bahrenburg and a watercolor print self-portrait to ARTWALK NY, a cause that benefits the
Coalition for the Homeless A coalition is a group formed when two or more people or groups temporarily work together to achieve a common goal. The term is most frequently used to denote a formation of power in political or economical spaces. Formation According to ''A Gui ...
. In the same year work by Close was also sold to benefit the Lunchbox Fund. Close was one of eight artists who volunteered in 2013 to participate in President Barack Obama's Turnaround Arts initiative, which aims to improve low-performing schools by increasing student "engagement" through the arts. Close mentored 34 students in the sixth through eighth grades at Roosevelt School in
Bridgeport, Connecticut Bridgeport is the most populous city and a major port in the U.S. state of Connecticut. With a population of 148,654 in 2020, it is also the fifth-most populous in New England. Located in eastern Fairfield County at the mouth of the Pequonn ...
, one of eight schools in the nation to participate in this public-private partnership developed in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Education and the White House
Domestic Policy Council The Domestic Policy Council (DPC) is the principal forum used by the president of the United States for the consideration of domestic policy matters and senior policymaking, Cabinet, and White House officials. The Council is part of the Office ...
. Close was honored by mayor Bill Finch with a key to the city at the November 7 reception at the
Housatonic Community College Housatonic Community College (HCC) is a public community college in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It part of the Connecticut State Colleges & Universities system. HCC grants associate degrees and also has certificate programs. Campus Lafayette Hal ...
Museum of Art, where five of Close's watercolor prints were exhibited alongside artwork by students participating in the program.


In the media

In 1998,
PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educati ...
broadcast documentary filmmaker Marion Cajori's Emmy-nominated short, "Chuck Close: A Portrait in Progress." In 2007, Cajori made "Chuck Close", a full-length expansion of the first film. British art critic Christopher Finch wrote a biography, ''Chuck Close: Life'', which was published in 2010, a sequel of sorts to Finch's 2007 book, ''Chuck Close: Work'', a career-spanning monograph. Another documentary film was made on Close in 1998, titled Chuck Close: Eye To Eye: ART/new york No. 48, by his classmate at Yale University Paul Tschinkel. Close appeared on '' The Colbert Report'' on August 12, 2010, where he said that he watches the show every night. Close was the subject of a
Heinemann Heinemann may refer to: * Heinemann (surname) * Heinemann (publisher), a publishing company * Heinemann Park, a.k.a. Pelican Stadium in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States See also * Heineman Heineman is a surname. Notable people with the surnam ...
book, ''Rocks in His Shoes: The Story of Chuck Close'', by Myka-Lynne Sokoloff, written for the Fountas & Pinnell ''Leveled Literacy Intervention'' series.


Sexual harassment allegations

On December 20, 2017, ''The New York Times'' and ''The Huffington Post'' published stories detailing two women accusing Close of sexual misconduct, saying Close invited the women to his studio to pose for what they thought would be portraits, and then Close asked them to pose nude and made vulgar comments to them. Their accounts were of alleged sexual harassment in 2007 and 2013. In response to the accusations, Close issued a statement to '' The New York Times'', saying "If I embarrassed anyone or made them feel uncomfortable, I am truly sorry, I didn't mean to. I acknowledge having a dirty mouth, but we’re all adults." On January 16, 2018, '' Hyperallergic'' published the accounts of four more women who alleged Close harassed them. Their accounts were of alleged sexual harassment from 2001, 2009, and 2013. Most of the allegations were from women in their 20s, during the time that Close was in his 60s and 70s. Many of the allegations were from college students, including from Yale University. Following the allegations, the Dean of the Yale School of Art, Marta Kuzma, "decided that in the best interest of the students, faculty, and greater community of the Yale School of Art that Mr. Close will no longer serve as a member of the Dean’s Council." The National Gallery of Art cancelled a Chuck Close exhibition, planned to open May 2018, due to the allegations. After Close died, his neurologist, Thomas M. Wisniewski, said that Close's inappropriate sexual behavior, alleged to have occurred from at least 2001 to 2013, could be attributed to his 2015 diagnosis of
frontotemporal dementia Frontotemporal dementia (FTD), or frontotemporal degeneration disease, or frontotemporal neurocognitive disorder, encompasses several types of dementia involving the progressive degeneration of frontal and temporal lobes. FTDs broadly present a ...
. Wisniewski said that Close "was very disinhibited and did inappropriate things, which were part of his underlying medical condition," and that this type of dementia "destroys that part of the brain that governs behavior and inhibits base instincts," adding that "sexual inappropriateness and disastrous financial decisions are common presenting symptoms."


Personal life

Close lived and worked in
Bridgehampton Bridgehampton is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) on the South Fork of Suffolk County, New York, United States. The population was 1,756 at the 2010 census. Bridgehampton is in the town of Southampton, on Long Island. Shortly after ...
and Long Beach, New York (both on the south shore of Long Island)Helen A. Harrison (February 22, 2004)
Following the Light, and Making Faces
'' The New York Times''.
and New York City's East Village. He had two daughters with Leslie Rose. They divorced in 2011. Close married artist Sienna Shields in 2013. They later divorced. Close was diagnosed with
frontotemporal dementia Frontotemporal dementia (FTD), or frontotemporal degeneration disease, or frontotemporal neurocognitive disorder, encompasses several types of dementia involving the progressive degeneration of frontal and temporal lobes. FTDs broadly present a ...
in 2015. He died on August 19, 2021, in
Oceanside, New York Oceanside is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) located in the southern part of the town of Hempstead, Nassau County, New York, United States. The population was 32,109 at the 2010 census. History Originally known as South Bay, the ...
, at the age of 81, from
congestive heart failure Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, an ...
.


See also

* List of Chuck Close subjects *
The Portrait Now The Portrait Now was an exhibition of contemporary portraiture held in 1993 to 1994 at the National Portrait Gallery, London. Among many others it included portraits by Michael Andrews, Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon, Tony Bevan, Chuck Close, ...


Further reading

* *


Sources

* * * *


External links


Official website
* *
Chuck Close: Process & Collaboration


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Close, Chuck 1940 births 2021 deaths 20th-century American male artists 20th-century American painters 20th-century American printmakers American male painters 21st-century American painters American photographers Artists from Washington (state) American contemporary painters Disability in the arts Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters National Academy of Design members People from Monroe, Washington People with tetraplegia People with frontotemporal dementia Photorealist artists Pointillism American portrait painters Postmodern artists United States National Medal of Arts recipients University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty University of Washington alumni People from Bridgehampton, New York American people with disabilities Artists with disabilities People from Everett, Washington People from the East Village, Manhattan People from Long Beach, New York Yale School of Art alumni