Self-Portrait

Artist Chuck Close (American, 1940 - 2021)

Date2002

Medium43-color handprinted woodcut, Nishinouchi paper

DimensionsImage: 22 1/8 × 17 3/4 inches (56.2 × 45.1 cm)
Sheet: 31 × 25 inches (78.7 × 63.5 cm)
Framed: 33 1/4 × 27 5/8 inches (84.5 × 70.2 cm)

Credit LineKirk Varnedoe Collection, Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, Gift of Chuck and Leslie Close in memory of Kirk Varnedoe.

Object number2006.10.2

On View

Not on view

Copyright© Chuck Close, courtesy Pace Prints. The images and text contained on this page are owned by Telfair Museums or used by the Museum with permission from the owners. Unauthorized reproduction, transmission or display of these materials is prohibited with the exception of items deemed “fair use” as defined by U.S. and international copyright laws.Label TextPainter, printmaker, and collage artist Chuck Close has specialized in massive photo-grid portrait heads since the 1970s. Using his friends, family, fellow artists, and (most frequently) himself as subjects, Close takes large Polaroid photographs of his sitters, places a grid over the photograph, then painstakingly transfers the image onto a large canvas, sheet of paper, or print matrix. Often indistinguishable from photographs, his works are created by a variety of techniques, including woodblock printing, etching, thumbprints, watercolor, and oil paint. Close’s time-consuming process can take several months for an oil painting and up to two years for a finished print. The results are intimate, non-idealized renderings that are technically adept and psychologically insightful. This Chuck Close self-portrait is on a smaller scale than is typical of the artist’s oeuvre. It was created by the complex Japanese method of ukiyo-e woodcut printing, in which a separate wood block is carved for each color in the print. The result is a colorful grid that can in one moment appear as both abstract and as the height of photorealism.

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