Large Kate, 2008
Pigment print chine collèd on to Fabriano
152.4 x 101.6 cm
Edition of 15

artist profile

Chuck Close

born

1940

lives and works

Bridgehampton, USA

education

BA, University of Washington, Seattle, USA, 1962
MFA, School of Art and Architecture, Yale University, New Haven, USA, 1964
Honorary DFA, Colby College, Waterville, USA, 1994
Honorary DFA, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA, 1995
Honorary DFA, Yale University, New Haven, USA, 1996
Honorary Doctorate, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, USA, 1997

about the artist

Portraiture has always been the axis of Chuck Close’s art. The assembly of faces he has portrayed over the years gives rise to a shared dialogue delving into the plights and joys of human existence. Within the genre of painting and photography, the artist has experimented with, reinvented, and conquered various approaches, processes, and methods, to a plethora of exhilarating effects. Strict photorealism, or hyperrealism, born of superb brushwork governed his earlier painting style; Close then managed to coalesce the representative with the abstract in his later works, elaborating upon his gridding system and maintaining the optical result of extreme verisimilitude. Close has enjoyed tremendous success since early in his career. He was awarded a Fulbright Grant by the Akademie der Bildenden Kunste in Vienna, Austria, in 1965; his work was exhibited at New York’s Museum of Modern Art as early as 1973, and was included in the Whitney Biennial of 1979. He has gone on to present many solo exhibitions and was offered grand retrospectives at prestigious American venues such as the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and others. The artist was inducted as a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in New York, and later became a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge. In 2000 the US government presented him with the National Medal of Arts.

  • Selected exhibition history
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Art Institute of Chicago, USA

Akron Art Museum, USA

Austin Museum of Art, USA

Albertina, Vienna, Austria

Boise Art Museum, USA

Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, USA

Cleveland Museum of Art, USA

Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, USA

Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, USA

Des Moines Art Center, USA

Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, USA

Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland

High Museum of Art, Atlanta, USA

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC, USA

Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, USA

Kresge Art Museum, Lansing, USA

Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany

Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison, USA

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Miami Art Museum, USA

Milwaukee Art Museum, USA

Minneapolis Institute of Arts, USA

Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, USA

MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, USA

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, USA

Museet for Samtidskunst, Roskilde, Denmark

Museo de Arte del Banco de la República - Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango, Santafé de Bogota, Colombia

Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, USA

Museum of Contemporary Art - Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, USA

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA

Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA

National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada

Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, USA

Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy

Polk Museum of Art, Lakeland, USA

Saint Louis Art Museum, USA

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, USA

Santa Barbara Museum of Art, USA

Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Gent, Belgium

Städel Museum, Frankfurt, Germany

Städtische Galerie Erlangen, Germany

Tampa Museum of Art, USA

Tate Britain, London, UK

Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Iran

University of Kentucky Art Museum, Lexington, USA

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, USA

Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA

Wright State University Art Galleries, Dayton, USA

Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, USA