American
b. 1940, Monroe, Washington
Lives and works between New York, New York and Long Island, New York

Chuck Close is a painter/artist and photographer who achieved fame as a photorealist. He is known for his large portraits based on photographs of family and friends, often other artists. Close creates a work in a calculated, systematic manner. He takes a photograph of the sitter, overlays it with a penciled grid, and then paints a vastly enlarged blowup of each square onto the canvas using airbrushes to create a photographic finish. He builds his images by applying one careful stroke after another in multi-colors or gray scale. Similar to Impressionist canvases, his compositions come into view as an observer stands farther away from them, particularly as over time he has moved from realism into more painterly, interpretive works.

Throughout his career, Close has endeavored to expand his contribution to portraiture through the mastery of such varied drawing and painting techniques as ink, graphite, pastel, watercolor, conté crayon, finger painting, and stamp-pad ink on paper as well as printmaking techniques, such as mezzotint, etching, woodcuts, linocuts, and silkscreens. He has also worked with Polaroid photographs, daguerreotypes, handmade paper collage and Jacquard tapestries.

Chuck Close credits the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and its then-director Martin Friedman for launching his career with the purchase of Big Self-Portrait (1967–1968). Now, his artworks can be found in every major museum around the world as well as important private and corporate art collections.