Chuck Close

Since 1968, when he made the first of his monumental portraits, American artist Chuck Close has explored that formal problem of representing the human face. This book accompanies a mid-career retrospective exhibition opening at The Museum of Modern Art, New York in February 1998. Over the course of his career, faces have undergone a gradual metamorphosis as they have been transformed in paintings, drawings, prints and photographs that, at one extreme, share the serial, geometric qualities of minimalist abstraction and, at the other, push the limits of realist illusion. A leading figure in the New York art world since the early 1970s, Close has concentrated in recent years on portraits of his close artist-friends and colleagues, including Robert Rauschenberg and Roy Lichtenstein. Characterized by colourful patterning, vivid brushwork and the animation of his sitters, Close's most recent paintings return to his roots in Abstract Expressionism, while carrying his own single-minded preoccupation with how people appear into new territory.