Chuck Close

1940–2021

Since the late 1960s, Chuck Close has created larger-than-life, photo-based portraits of friends, family members, and fellow artists, which he calls “heads.” Prior to that time he painted in an Abstract Expressionist style, but renounced it for a more predetermined way of working: he began tracing grids over photographs of faces and transferred and enlarged them onto canvas, by the quarter-inch unit, using an airbrush filled with black paint. This methodical technique aligns Close’s output as much with the systematic rigor of some Minimalist and Conceptual art as with the Photorealism with which it is often linked. Phil—derived from a photograph of the composer Philip Glass, on which Close based a number of subsequent works—was among the first of these monumental black-and-white portraits. At the time, Glass was working as an assistant to the artist Richard Serra, and Close professed an interest in making “portraits of people who are in the arts but not famous.” Close’s images are exacting and dispassionate; they expose every minute facial detail, however unflattering, and yet, unlike conventional portraiture, reveal little about the characters of their subjects.

In 1970 Close started to work in color, adopting the layering processes used in color printing. He covered his surfaces in matrices of small dots, arranged in grids—abstract marks that coalesced into figurative depictions of faces. He began using his hand directly again in 1978, impressing his inked fingerprints on a grid and varying their density in order to convey texture and modeling. Mark/Fingerprint pictures Mark Greenwold—an artist Close first depicted in the early 1970s—using his fingerprints and red, yellow, and blue ink. Since the late 1980s, Close’s work has expanded beyond painting and prints to include photographs and tapestry portraits.

Wikipedia entry

Introduction

Charles Thomas Close (July 5, 1940 – August 19, 2021) was an American painter, visual artist, and photographer who made massive-scale photorealist 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.

Wikidata identifier

Q453883

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Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License . Accessed May 13, 2025.

Getty record

Introduction

American painter and printmaker, known as one of the leading members of the Photorealist movement of the 1960s and 1970s. He is best known for his large portraits of himself and his friends taken from photographs and painstakingly rendered on canvas.

Country of birth

United States

Roles

Artist, collagist, graphic artist, lecturer, painter, photographer

ULAN identifier

500031023

Names

Chuck Close, Charles Close, Chuck Close, Charles Thomas Close

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Information from the Getty Research Institute's Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License. Accessed May 13, 2025.

Not on view

First acquired
1969

Date of birth
July 5, 1940

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artists/275