Its formats were enormous, the sitter larger than life – and only recognizable from a distance. Chuck Close, born in Monroe, Washington state in 1940, one of the most important photorealists of contemporary art, decided early on for this style, which was initially considered to be decidedly inartistic. He transferred photographed portraits onto the canvas using a grid. “It is my goal to translate photographed information into information of color,” he confidently stated in 1970.
Chuck Close, whose mother supported the family with piano lessons after the early death of his father, attracted attention as a teenager in a talent competition and was invited to Yale’s summer academy. After completing his studies, he lived in Vienna for a year before settling in New York, where his paintings were shown for the first time in the Museum of Modern Art as early as 1973. He took part in the Documenta twice in the 1970s, and his paintings were bought by the most important museums in the world.
A ruptured blood vessel in the spine caused paraplegia in 1988, after which Chuck Close was dependent on a wheelchair and developed a method of guiding his left arm with the help of splints and continuing to work with a brush. After he was accused of sexual harassment by several women in 2017, it had become quieter around the artist, who did not deny the allegations: “I admit we have a dirty mouth, but we are all adults,” he told the New York Times. “I am sincerely sorry if I embarrassed someone or made them feel uncomfortable,” he admitted, “but discomfort is not a serious offense, either.” Chuck Close died of heart failure last Wednesday in a New York hospital after a long illness.