Chuck Close

Chuck Close was born in 1940 in Monroe, Washington. He received his BFA in 1962 from the University of Washington and his MFA in 1964 from Yale. In 1997, the University of Washington granted Close Alumnus Summa Laude Dignatus. This is the highest honor a UW alumnus can receive.

Close is best know for monumental face paintings of friends, relatives, and himself (A) on very large canvases (B). Over the years he has worked with many different imaging mediums–mezzotint, paint, pastel, watercolor, litho, silk-screen, woodcut, and etching. He’s mastered these mediums both as painter and printmaker.

Close developed creative techniques and systems for painting and printing in matrices that, from a distance, reveal a persons face. But up close, his images are a mix of colored shapes (C), scribbles, black and white dots, and fingerprints (D). He works from a photograph, not a model, due to much of his work taking over a year to complete. Each photo is split up into sections using a grid. Some of his grids have more than 100,000 squares. He then works cell by cell using his grid system to complete each image (E).

In 1988, Chuck Close had a spinal artery collapse, due to a blood clot, after giving a speech at an awards ceremony. The collapse left him a quadriplegic. With the help of an assistant, he continued painting by using a forklift and holding a brush in his teeth. He eventually recovered some movement in his arm and legs and learned how to paint with a brush strapped to his hand.

One of his more recent works is a 113 color Japanese style ukiyo-e woodcut named Emma (F). Started in February of 2001 and finished in 2002, it took over 18 months to complete. Close worked with Yasuyuki Shibata, a graduate of Kyoto Seika University, to create the print.

Yasuyuki made color separations for each color in the original painting. He carved 27 blocks (G) out of maple and basswood that would hold the 113 colors. Each block was printed up to 132 times for each of the 55 impressions.

Article written by Ian Caspersson