Chuck Close
Zhang Huan I, 2008
Oil on canvas
257.8 × 213.4 cm
In Chuck Close’s works, a mathematical precision is conflated with the gauzy abstraction. As the viewer’s eye relaxes focus, the subject’s face coalesces, rich with the color and tone, even though it consists of an array of tiny, sensuous color field paintings, where each square reading individually as a blur of pigment.
“That’s the great pleasure, I think, in the magic of painting: that painting, is a window to someplace else, another time, another culture. It transcends the stuff and becomes a life experience that you share with someone else.” – Chuck Close
Exhibitions
Chuck Close: Selected Paintings and Tapestries 2005–2009. Pace, New York, May 1–June 20, 2009.
50 Years at Pace. The Pace Gallery, New York, September 17–October 16, 2010.
Chuck Close. Blum and Poe, Los Angeles, October 29–December 22, 2011.
Publications
Chuck Close: Paintings, 1967 to the Present. Digital Catalogue Raisonné. Artifex Press, 2016.
Bui, Phong. “In Conversation: Chuck Close with Phong Bui.” Brooklyn Rail, June 2008 p. 32.
Mason, Brook S. “How Grandma’s Crochet Inspired My Artistic Vision.” Art Newspaper no. 201 (April 2009) p. 44.
Wei, Lilly. “Face Time.” In Chuck Close: Selected Paintings and Tapestries 2005-2009. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Pace Wildenstein, 2009. pp. 1, 9, 26, 27.
Falconer, Morgan. “An American Trilogy, Part III: Realism, Chuck Close.” With sidebar text by Madeleine Grynsztejn. Art World, no. 11 (June/July 2009) pp. 44.
Glimcher, Arne. 50 Years at Pace. Exhibition catalogue. New York: The Pace Gallery, 2010. pp. 275, no. 157.
Finch, Christopher. Chuck Close: Work. Munich; Berlin; London; New York: Prestel Verlag, 2007; 2010; 2014. pp. 318, 322.
“Memorias Cuadriculadas (Squared Memories).” In 100 Miradas al Arte Contemporáneo (100 Views on Contemporary Art). Santiago: Arte al Límite, 2014. p. 16.
Tony, Godfrey. “Chuck Close.” RES: Art World/World Art, no. 11 (2014) p.17.
