Close, Chuck (Charles Thomas Close),
1940–2021, American painter, b. Monroe, Wash., Univ. of Washington
(B.A., 1962), Yale Univ. (B.F.A., 1963; M.F.A., 1964). After studying in
Vienna (1964–65), he moved (1968) to New York City. Close specialized
in huge, coolly expressionless single portraits of his artist friends,
himself, or his family, executed from his own photographs in painstaking
detail on a grid of small squares. His first works were painted in black and
white; he introduced color in the 1970s and 80s. In 1988, Close suffered a
collapsed spinal artery, which left him almost completely paralyzed. A brace
device on his partially mobile hand, a sophisticated wheelchair, and other
aids allowed him to paint again, and in the 1990s his work became freer and
more lively. Within the armature of his grids, each tilelike square is
filled with swirling, warmly multicolored designs in various
forms–X's, O's, concentric rings of ameboid shapes, and
others–in closeup resembling tiny abstract paintings, but at a
distance coalescing into monumentally frontal portrait heads. From the 1970s
to the present, Close has also created a variety of multiple images in such
media as mezzotint, aquatint, linoleum cut, woodcut, screen print, paper
pulp, and daguerreotype. In 2017, several women accused Close of verbal
sexual harassment which tarnished his reputation.
See The Portraits Speak: Chuck Close in Conversation with 27 of His Subjects
(1998); J. Guare, Chuck Close: Life and Work,
1988–1995 (1996); biography by C. Finch, Chuck
Close: Life (2010), Chuck Close: Work (2014);
studies by C. Westerbeck (1989), R. Storr et al. (1998, repr. 2002), and T.
Sultan (2003), (2014); M. Cajori, dir., Portrait in
Progress (documentary film, 1997).
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