Chuck Close
American, 1940–2021
Close was born in Monroe, Washington, in 1940. He graduated from the University of Washington in 1962 and earned his M.F.A. from Yale in 1964. He was one of the world’s leading modern artists, with a focus on portraits of himself, his family and his friends, often produced at a very large scale. Close typically began with a photograph of a face, creating a painting or print through a complex grid-based reconstruction of the image that he created by hand using many techniques that are unique to his work. His paintings are even more impressive given that Close had to relearn how to use his hands after a collapsed spinal artery left him paralyzed from the shoulders down in 1988. Close’s work is included in the collections of numerous museums, including the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; The Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City; and the Tate Britain in London.
“In my art I deconstruct and then I reconstruct, so visual perception is one of my primary interests.”
Henning Kaiser/DDP/AFP/Getty Images
