Chuck Close

Chuck Close: "Lorna" (1995)

Chuck Close: "Agnes" (1998)

Chuck Close: "John" (1998)

Chuck Close: "Roy I" (1994)

Chuck Close: "Lorna" (1995)

Chuck Close: "Robert" (1997)

Chuck Close: "Robert/ 104072" (1974). It consists of a grid of 104,072 squares. On average, Close created each square with ten presses of the airbrush; thus, the completed canvas totals more than one million individual applications of paint. (The artist developed arthritis after taking fourteen months to complete the work.) In the accompanying maquette, we see that Close grouped rows from a grid drawn across his source photo- graphs by the time required to complete each section: “7 days,” “4 nights,” “8 % days,” “2 % nites,” and so on. These notes demystify the creative process and remind us that artmaking is about putting in the hours—about work. Close’s comment that he sought to “get away from virtuoso art marks” is insightful, as it signals photorealism’s rejection of traditional notions of artistic genius in favor of exacting manual labor. at the Broad Museum in Los Angeles

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