‘Self-portrait/Color’, 2007
Сourtesy of Gary Tatintsian Gallery, Pace Gallery and the artist.
In the memory of Chuck Close
15 Jul 1940 — 19 Aug 2021
With greatest sadness we announce that artist Chuck Close passed away on August 19, 2021 following complications from a long illness.
“We have lost a legendary artist today. A great person and unsurpassed master of his time. We are grateful for all contribution Chuck Close brought to the history of art.”
—Gary Tatintsian
One of the most influential artists of his generation, a legendary portrait painter and master of photorealism, Chuck Close is renowned for his meticulous detail and innovative technique, which deeply impacted both American culture and the international art community.
Art became a way to communicate his pain—both physical and emotional—as well as a tool to celebrate his victory against the circumstances that tried to stop him from living his dream. In addition to the partial paralysis that made him use a wheelchair since 1988, the artist suffered from prosopagnosia (face blindness). He wanted to commit images of friends and family to memory, immortalizing the people and faces that mattered most. As an artist with a deep academic foundation, he pushed the concept of photographic realism in painting to the foreground and further popularized the use of art as a reflection of the power of individuality.
Chuck Close received a National Medal of Arts and was appointed to serve on President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and served on the boards of the most prestigious arts organizations. His artwork has been featured in hundreds of exhibitions as well as private and permanent museum collections around the world: Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate Britain, London; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; National Portrait Gallery, London; Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima; Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen, Germany; and many others.
