ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES - CHUCK CLOSE

Close, Chuck (b. 1940), American photographer and painter. As a youngster, Close struggled with learning disorders. His genius as a portraitist emerged when he discovered that he could analyse Polaroid photographs of people by breaking them into tiny grid patterns. Often spending more than a year on each image, he slowly replicated (initially in black-and-white, then in colour) each small square in an enlarged format on enormous canvases. His paintings range from uncannily photorealistic to softly pointillistic faces. A paralytic illness in 1988 forced him to paint from a wheelchair, his brush strapped to his wrist.

Used with permission. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright © 2001 Columbia University Press