Chuck Close
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
| Revision as of 06:52, 24 August 2021 Jahsonic (Talk | contribs) ← Previous diff |
Revision as of 06:53, 24 August 2021 Jahsonic (Talk | contribs) Next diff → |
||
| Line 3: | Line 3: | ||
| ==Style== | ==Style== | ||
| - | Throughout his career, Close expanded his contribution to [[portraiture]] 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]], [[etching]], [[woodcuts]], linocuts, and [[silkscreens]]; as well as handmade paper collage, [[Instant film|Polaroid]] photographs, [[daguerreotypes]], and [[Joseph Marie Jacquard|Jacquard]] tapestries. His early airbrush techniques inspired the development of the [[ink jet printer]].<ref name="Lyle Rexer 2000">Lyle Rexer (March 12, 2000), [https://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/12/arts/art-architecture-chuck-close-rediscovers-the-art-in-an-old-method.html Chuck Close Rediscovers the Art in an Old Method] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160307110324/http://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/12/arts/art-architecture-chuck-close-rediscovers-the-art-in-an-old-method.html |date=March 7, 2016 }} ''[[The New York Times]]''.</ref> | + | Throughout his career, Close expanded his contribution to [[portraiture]] 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]], [[etching]], [[woodcuts]], linocuts, and [[silkscreens]]; as well as handmade paper collage, [[Instant film|Polaroid]] photographs, [[daguerreotypes]], and [[Joseph Marie Jacquard|Jacquard]] tapestries. His early airbrush techniques inspired the development of the [[ink jet printer]]. |
| - | 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]], although with a dash of Pop iconoclasm".<ref name="nytimes.com"/> After a period in which he experimented with [[Figurative art|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.<ref>[http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/chuck-close-920 Chuck Close] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120805032544/http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/chuck-close-920 |date=August 5, 2012 }} [[Tate Modern]], London.</ref> As he explained in a 2009 interview with Cleveland, Ohio's ''[[The Plain Dealer]]'' 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."<ref>Norman, M. [http://www.cleveland.com/arts/index.ssf/2009/09/contemporary_art_legend_chuck.html Contemporary Art Legend Chuck Close Talks About Painting] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100604015731/http://www.cleveland.com/arts/index.ssf/2009/09/contemporary_art_legend_chuck.html |date=June 4, 2010 }}, The Plain Dealer, September 1, 2009</ref> 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. | + | 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]], although with a dash of Pop iconoclasm". After a period in which he experimented with [[Figurative art|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]]'' 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.<ref>[https://whitecube.com/exhibitions/exhibition/chuck_close_duke_street_1999 Chuck Close: Photographs, 23 July – 4 September 1999][[White Cube]], London.</ref> His works are generally larger than life and highly focused.<ref>[http://www.paceprints.com/artist/172 Chuck Close] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120318050514/http://www.paceprints.com/artist/172 |date=March 18, 2012 }} Pace Prints, New York.</ref> "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]], [[Denis Peterson]], [[Audrey Flack]], 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."<ref>Thompson, Graham: American Culture in the 1980s (Twentieth Century American Culture) Edinburgh University Press, 2007</ref> | + | 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. "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]], [[Denis Peterson]], [[Audrey Flack]], 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.<ref>[https://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/july-dec10/close_07-06.html For Chuck Close, an Evolving Journey Through the Faces of Others] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140121223236/http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/july-dec10/close_07-06.html |date=January 21, 2014 }} [[PBS Newshour]] July 6, 2010</ref> 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."<ref>Yuskavage, Lisa. [http://bombsite.com/issues/52/articles/1868 "Chuck Close"] {{webarchive|url=http://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/20110818034248/http://bombsite.com/issues/52/articles/1868 |date=August 18, 2011 }}, "[[BOMB Magazine]]", Summer, 1995. Retrieved July 25, 2011.</ref> | + | 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 (graphic design)|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 {{convert|107.5|x|83.5|in|cm}} 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]] that all eight of the paintings were made with a single tube of [[Mars Black (pigment)|Mars Black]] acrylic. | Although his later paintings differed in method from his earlier canvases, the preliminary process remained the same. To create his [[Grid (graphic design)|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 {{convert|107.5|x|83.5|in|cm}} 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]] that all eight of the paintings were made with a single tube of [[Mars Black (pigment)|Mars Black]] acrylic. | ||
Revision as of 06:53, 24 August 2021
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
Charles Thomas Close (July 5, 1940 – August 19, 2021) was an American painter, visual artist, and photographer. He made massive-scale photorealist and abstract portraits of himself and others, which hang in collections internationally. 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. He died on August 19, 2021.
Style
Throughout his career, Close expanded his contribution to portraiture 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, etching, woodcuts, linocuts, and silkscreens; as well as handmade paper collage, Polaroid photographs, daguerreotypes, and Jacquard tapestries. His early airbrush techniques inspired the development of the ink jet printer.
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, 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 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. "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, Denis Peterson, Audrey Flack, 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 Template:Convert 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 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 style regions of similar colors, CMYK 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.
See also
