Museum Exhibition Catalogues, Monographs, Artist's Projects, Curatorial Writings and Essays
"If you think about the late 60s, painting seemed like a senseless activity. If you were dumb enough to make a painting, it had better be abstract. It was even dumber to make a representational image. Then the dumbest, most moribund, out-of-date and shopworn of all possible things you could do was make a portrait." Chuck Close, quoted by Douglas R. Nickel in Chuck Close: Self-Portraits 1967-2005, Walker Art Center/San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Chuck Close was born in Monroe, Washington, in 1940 and studied visual art at Yale University. Photography has been an integral part of his painting process since the mid-60s, and later became a body of work in its own right. Close has also distinguished himself as a master of printmaking. Since 1967 his work has been the subject of more than 100 major exhibitions throughout the world.
Published by Pace Publishing. Introduction by Phong Bui. Text by Carter Ratcliff, Barbara Knappmeyer. Interview by Cindy Sherman.
Since the 1970s, Chuck Close (1940–2021) has been known for his innovative approach to conceptual portraiture, systematically transposing his subjects’ likenesses from photographs into gridded paintings. Published on the occasion of Pace Gallery’s first exhibition of the artist’s work since his death in 2021, Red, Yellow, and Blue spotlights Close’s final body of paintings, which employ a palette of only three colors. Layering transparent glazes of red, yellow and blue paint, Close created an effect of abstract likeness entirely different from that of his previous work. Alongside studio photography and images of Close’s mosaic works, this volume features a previously unpublished 2018 interview between Close and Cindy Sherman—originally commissioned by the Brooklyn Rail—as well as a new critical essay by Carter Ratcliff, which considers Close’s final works in depth. An additional essay by Barbara Knappmeyer examines the artist’s portraits in the context of facial recognition technology.
Published by Silvana Editoriale. Edited with text by Daniele Torcellini. Text by Giovanna Cassese, Senaldi, Carina Evangelista.
Chuck Close (born 1940) likes to push the boundaries of techniques, processes and materials of figurative depiction, working with various collaborators to achieve his vision. His first public artwork, Subway Portraits, featured a series of 12 mosaic and tile artworks commissioned by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority Arts & Design program in 2017.
This book presents Chuck Close’s new series of mosaic artworks as well as related works, such as prints, tapestries and photographs. It also documents the production process of these works by fabricators Mosaika Art and Design and Magnolia Editions, as well as the 12 works they produced for the 86th St subway station in New York.
Published by Little Steidl. Edited by Jerry Sohn, Nina Holland.
When confronted with the opportunity to make a children's book, the internationally renowned painter, photographer and printmaker Chuck Close quickly took to the idea of a publication without words. Scribble Book, presented in two accordion-folded volumes, is a self-portrait that emerges incrementally from the printing process--one plate and one color at a time. In the first volume, the viewer follows a series of nine individual plate proofs; in the second, we follow along with a corresponding series of nine progressive proofs, culminating in a nine-color self-portrait. By comparing the plate proofs against the progressive proofs, the viewer can ascertain not only the cumulative effect as each color is added to create the final nine-color etching, but also the compositional decisions and modulations made by Close at each stage of the project. The two accordion-folded volumes are accompanied by a separate text in which the artist gives a personal account of the drawing process.
Published by Aperture. Interview by Lyle Rexer. Poetry by Bob Holman.
A Couple of Ways of Doing Something replicates a deluxe limited-edition portfolio whose initial run was only 75 copies. This clothbound edition preserves the luxurious sensibility of the original with 22 extraordinary oversized daguerreotypes printed in rich tritone. Working with daguerreotype master Jerry Spagnoli to conquer the complexities of this venerable process, which yields images of astonishing detail and gravity, Chuck Close photographed many of the same artist-friends who have made regular appearances in his paintings over the years: Laurie Anderson, Lyle Ashton Harris, Cecily Brown, Gregory Crewdson, Carroll Dunham, Ellen Gallagher, Philip Glass, Bob Holman, Elizabeth Murray, Elizabeth Peyton, Andres Serrano, Cindy Sherman, James Siena, Lorna Simpson, Kiki Smith, James Turrell, Robert Wilson, Terry Winters, Lisa Yuskavage and himself. Each image is complemented by a poem on its subject by Bob Holman, the celebrated and widely published New York School poet who originated and hosted the famous Poetry Slams at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and now runs the Bowery Poetry Club. With the counterpoint of Holman's engaging poetry, the collected work becomes a transfixing group portrait of Close's influential and highly creative circle of friends and colleagues, as well as an exploration of a challenging photographic medium. A traveling exhibition of the work will launch in November 2006 at the Aperture Gallery.
PUBLISHER Aperture
BOOK FORMAT Clothbound, 12 x 15 in. / 56 pgs / 22 tritones.
PUBLISHING STATUS Pub Date 11/15/2006 No longer our product
DISTRIBUTION Contact Publisher Catalog:
PRODUCT DETAILS ISBN 9781597110181TRADE List Price: $50.00 CAD $60.00
Published by Walker Art Center/San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Essays by Siri Engberg, Madeleine Grynsztejn and Douglas R. Nickel. Foreword by Kathy Halbreich and Neal Benezra.
A celebrated, popular and influential figure in American art, Chuck Close has focused exclusively, and with great innovation, on the genre of portraiture. This exhibition, co-organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, explores the artist's work in self-portraiture over four decades and across a variety of media, including painting, drawing, photography, collage, and printmaking. The first comprehensive museum survey of Close's self-portraits, the exhibition and its accompanying publication offer a fascinating glimpse of an artist's self-examination and evolution over time and elucidate his unbounded, process-driven experimentation with media and techniques. Working with the seemingly narrow subject of his own face, Close has produced a richly varied trove that ranges from intimately scaled collage maquettes and fingerprint drawings to monumental gridded canvases; from the sharp definition of certain photographic techniques to the ghostly blurs of daguerreotypes and holograms; from the tactile complexity of paper pulp editions to the smooth, mechanical surfaces of Polaroids and digital ink-jet prints; from the subtle tonalities of gray-scale paintings and drawings to the exuberance of an 111-color screenprint. When Close unleashes his imagination on his own visage, this familiar figure is at his most revealing.
Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Edited by Robert Storr. Essays by Kirk Varnedoe and Deborah Wye. Foreword by Glenn D. Lowry.
The most comprehensive assessment of Chuck Close's work yet published, this volume accompanied a mid-career retrospective exhibition that opened at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, on February 25, 1998. A leading figure in the New York art world since the early 1970s, Close has recently concentrated on portraits of his artist friends and colleagues, characterized by colorful patterning and vivid brushwork. Subjects include Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Alex Katz, Kiki Smith, Lucas Samaras and Lorna Simpson. Here, more than 90 paintings, prints, drawings and photographs are reproduced, along with details and comparative illustrations.
Chuck Close: Mosaics
Chuck Close: Scribble Book
Chuck Close: A Couple of Ways of Doing Something
Chuck Close: Self-Portraits 1967-2005
Chuck Close