about the author
Chuck Close knows adversity. Early on, he was diagnosed with a neuromuscular condition that made playing sports impossible; and when he was eleven, a kidney problem confined him to bed for nearly a year. He was so dyslexic he was unable to do even simple math and was labeled dumb. But he was really good at drawing and painting. Still, even his art came at a price.
Chuck has prosopagnosia, a disorder that makes it impossible for him to recognize faces.
So can you guess what he has devoted his painting career to? Painting faces—huge highly inventive faces, some as large as 9 feet by 7 feet! Using questions and answers from a visit with fifth-grade students from PS8 in New York City, this autobiography tells about his life and work. Filled with color reproductions of his paintings and photos of him and his family, the book also offers descriptions of seventeen different techniques that he has perfected.
In the center of the book is a flip section showing fourteen of his faces, each done in a different technique. Each face is cut into three sections and although they were painted decades apart, each section of each face lines up perfectly with the next.
In 1988 at the age of 48 Chuck faced even more adversity. He suffered a collapsed spinal artery that left him paralyzed from the chest down. Though confined to a wheel chair, Chuck still paints his huge canvases using a brush strapped to his arm and a specially designed mechanical easel. Physical disabilities are not slowing down this prolific artist. He has to paint as fast as he can. Chuck is going blind.
His paintings can be found in private collections and museums throughout the world. One of his paintings sold at auction for 4.8 million dollars. Not bad for a ”dumb” kid who couldn’t even add!
about the author
Born in 1940, Chuck Close grew up in Everett, Washington, right next door to his grandparents. It was good that his loving family was so near. His eleventh year was particularly tough.
That year he took painting lessons from a professional artist and visited the Seattle Art Museum. There he met Jackson Pollock who was up on a ladder, dripping aluminum paint, gravel, tar and other weird stuff on a canvas. At first, Chuck was enraged. That was not a painting—or was it? Chuck had to rethink his whole perception of art. Two or three days later, he was up on his own ladder, experimenting with dripping paint on his own canvases!
That was also the year Chuck was bedridden for months with swollen kidneys. The hardest aspect of the year was his mother’s struggle with breast cancer and his father’s death.
Though dyslexia made his early school years difficult, he shined in college. He was selected for Yale’s Summer of Music and Art, graduated with honors from the University of Washington, and earned a Master’s from Yale. He went on to study in Vienna.
With a cognitive condition that leaves it impossible to recognize faces, Chuck made a personal decision to challenge himself. He decided to specialize in portraits. Very, very large portraits! He then made it even harder by throwing away all his brushes and turning to alternative techniques.
Chuck sold his first massive face painting to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for just $1300. Today his paintings garner top prices. Each one takes over a year to finish. Confined to a wheelchair after a collapsed spinal artery left him paralyzed, he continues to paint in his specially motorized studio in Long Island, New York. He and his family also have homes in New York’s West Village and in Bridgehampton.
Chuck also teaches at the University of Massachusetts. That is where he met his wife Leslie Rose. They have two grown daughters, Georgia and Maggie.
Sources:
Author interview : The Telegraph
Author biography : Wikipedia
Author biography : Biography.com
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