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Chuck Close

Auction Lot 40021374
CHUCK CLOSE (Monroe, Washington, 1940-Oceanside, 2021).
"Merce Cunningham," 2004.
Color pigment print.
Edition of 40.
Signed, numbered and dated on recto.
Measurements: 91.4 x 76.4 cm.

Open live auction
Estimated Value : 1,800 - 2,000 €
Live auction: 17 Jul 2025
Live auction: 17 Jul 2025 15:00
Remaining time: 26 days 16:32:25
Processing lot please standby
Next bid: 1000

BID HISTORY

DESCRIPTION

CHUCK CLOSE (Monroe, Washington, 1940-Oceanside, 2021).
"Merce Cunningham," 2004.
Color pigment print.
Edition of 40.
Signed, numbered and dated on recto.
Measurements: 91.4 x 76.4 cm.

Chuck Close was one of the most renowned American photorealist painters and photographers. In 1962 he received his B.A. degree from the University of Washington in Seattle. He graduated (MFA) from Yale University in 1964. He spent time in Europe on a Fulbright Fellowship, returning to the U.S. where he worked as a professor of art at the University of Massachusetts. In 1969, his work was included in the Whitney Biennial. In 1970, he had his first solo exhibition. His work was first exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) in 1973. To create his works, Close would place a mesh over the photo and on the canvas and copy cell by cell. His early tools for this included a sprayer, scraps of fabric, blades, and an eraser mounted on a drilling machine. His first major painting using this method was his Large Self-Portrait, a black-and-white enlargement of his face on a 2.73 m by 2.12 m canvas produced over four months in 1968. He produced seven other black and white portraits during this period. He is said to have mentioned using paint so diluted in the sprayer that all eight paintings were done with a single tube of black acrylic. Close has often returned to the same photos to paint again and again with different techniques. A photo of Philip Glass was included in his 1969 black and white series, redone with watercolors in 1977, again redone with pad and prints in 1978, and also with handmade gray paper in 1982. His later work has branched out into non-rectangular grids, similar topographical map-like color regions, CMYK color grid work, and the use of large grids to make obvious the cellular nature of his work even in small reproductions -- the Large Self-Portrait is done so perfectly that even a full-page reproduction in an art book cannot be distinguished from a normal photograph. In 1988, Close suffered a collapse of his spinal artery, the day he was to give a lecture at an art award ceremony. He felt ill beforehand, gave his lecture, and then trudged to a hospital across the street. A few hours later he was a paraplegic. Close continued to paint with a brush between his teeth, creating mini-portraits on square meshes prepared by an assistant. From a distance, these squares appear as a single image. He regained some movement in his arm and legs, and painted with a brush strapped to his hand. The work Kiki, completed in 1993, took him four months. Close lived in Bridgehampton, New York. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a recipient of the National Medal of Arts.

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