Big Self-Portrait, Acrylic on Canvas, Chuck Close, 1967-68
Chuck Close is an American painter and photographer who achieved fame as a photorealist, through his massive-scale portraits. Though a catastrophic spinal artery collapse in 1988 left him severely paralyzed, he has continued to paint and produce work which remains sought after by museums and collectors.
To create his grid work copies of photos, Close puts a grid on the photo and on the canvas and copies cell by cell. His first picture with this method was Big Self Portrait, a black and white enlargement of his face made in over four months in 1968.
Later work has branched into non-rectangular grids, topographic map style regions of similar colors, CMYK color grid work, and using larger grids to make the cell by cell nature of his work obvious even in small reproductions. Yet the Big Self Portrait is so finely done that even a full page reproduction in an art book is still indistinguishable from a regular photograph.
Later work has branched into non-rectangular grids, topographic map style regions of similar colors, CMYK color grid work, and using larger grids to make the cell by cell nature of his work obvious even in small reproductions. Yet the Big Self Portrait is so finely done that even a full page reproduction in an art book is still indistinguishable from a regular photograph.
