Recognized for his contributions to portraiture, American artist Chuck Close explored wide-ranging modes of representation, from photorealistic to abstract. He employed various media including ink, graphite, finger paint, and paper pulp to paint and draw in precise detail on large-scale canvases. Close depicted his subjects—including politicians, celebrities, fellow artists, and Close, himself—in straightforward perspectives, drawing attention to facial characteristics rendered in either realistic detail or abstracted grids transposed from photographs. Challenging traditional forms of representation and perception, Close’s grid systems appear as pixelated mosaics that encourage viewers to blend layered colors into a unified image through their own eyes.

–From the Glenstone Field Guide