Customer Reviews

Chuck Close: Self-Portraits 1967-2005

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Chuck Close is an artist's artist. During his long career he has created different ways for us to view reality, breaking up images into 'pixels' and then reconstructing those units to enhance the original image. Close works from a wheel chair and yet from that vantage he has created monumental works on paper and canvas that defy imagination.

In this fine book, a catalogue accompanying an exhibition co-organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the subject matter is self portraiture and serves as a survey of the myriad, innovative ways Close has approached the image of his own face in various media. According to the book well written by Siri Engberg, Close as innovatively used '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'.

But the words, though impressively describing technical aspects of Close's art, pale in comparison to the visual images his imaginative processes produce. The book is well illustrated and serves as a fine, scholarly investigation of just how successful Close has become. His stature in the art world, a world constantly changing and re-inventing itself, is secure as one of the greats an artist ever challenging his own perceptions and techniques of creativity. And this very fine book substantiates his standing. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, November 05