Chuck Close biography

Synopsis

Early Life

Charles Thomas Close was born July 5, 1940, in Monroe, Washington. The son of artistic parents who showed great support of their boy's early creative interests, Close, who suffers from severe dyslexia, struggled in almost all phases of schoolwork except art. He was not terribly popular in school, and his problems were furthered by a neuromuscular condition that prevented him from playing sports.

For the first decade of his life, Close's childhood was more or less stable. But when he was 11, tragedy struck, when his father died and his mother fell ill with breast cancer. Close's own health took a terrible turn around this time as well, when a kidney infection landed him in bed for almost a year.

Through all of this, however, Close deepened his love for painting and art in general. At the age of 14, he saw an exhibition of Jackson Pollack paintings. Pollack's style and flair had a great impact on Close, and, as he later recounted, it made him determined to become an artist.

Close eventually enrolled at the University of Washington, graduating in 1962 and immediately heading east to Yale to study for a Master of Fine Arts from the university's Art and Architecture School.

Steeped heavy in the abstract world, Close radically changed his focus at Yale, opting for what would become his signature style: photo-realism. Using a process he came to describe as "knitting," Close created large-format Polaroids of models that he then recreated on large canvases.

This early work was bold, intimate and up-front, replicating the particular details of his selected faces. In addition, his pieces blurred the distinction between painting and photography in a way that had never been done before. His techniques too were noteworthy, in particular his application of color, which helped pave the way for the development of the inkjet printer.

By the late 1960s, Close and his photo-realist pieces were entrenched in the New York City art scene. One of his best-known subjects from that period was of another young artistic talent, composer Philip Glass, whose portrait Close painted and showed in 1969. It has since gone on to become one of his most recognized pieces. He later painted choreographer Merce Cunningham and former President Bill Clinton, among others.

By the 1970s, Close's work was shown in the world's finest galleries, and he was widely considered one of America's best contemporary artists.

Paralysis

In 1988, Close again experienced the trauma of a severe health issue when he suffered the sudden rupture of a spinal artery.