walker art center premieres exhibition of chuck close self-portraits ...

NEWS
Press Contact: Karen Gysin 612.375.7651 karen.gysin@walkerart.org
Online Press Room: http://press.walkerart.org
WALKER ART CENTER PREMIERES EXHIBITION OF CHUCK CLOSE
SELF-PORTRAITS JULY 24–OCTOBER 16
TRAVELING EXHIBITION CO-PRESENTED BY WALKER AND SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM
OF MODERN ART TRAVELS TO SAN FRANCISCO, ATLANTA, AND BUFFALO
Chuck Close, Big Self-Portrait, 1967-1968
acrylic on canvas
107 1/2 x 83 1/2”
Collection Walker Art Center
Art Center Acquisition Fund, 1969
Minneapolis, June 24, 2005—Celebrated as one of the most influential
artists of our time, Chuck Close has remained a vital presence by
continuously reinventing portraiture, a genre often under-recognized in
contemporary art. Since the 1960s, Close has used his inimitable style of
representational painting to portray a wide range of subjects, including
friends, family, fellow artists, and himself. Chuck Close: Self-Portraits
1967–2005, premieres at the Walker Art Center July 24–October 16. Coorganized
by the Walker and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
(SFMOMA), the presentation focuses exclusively on Close's self-portraits
and provides a fascinating glimpse of an artist’s self-examination over
time. Among the more than 80 works on view will be 14 major paintings,
including the artist’s first self-portrait painted in 1967–1968, as well as
drawings, Polaroid photographs, prints, paper pulp works, and
daguerreotypes. A number of the self-portraits have never before been on
public view. The first single-artist exhibition to be presented in the
Walker’s newly expanded facility, Chuck Close: Self-Portraits: 1967–2005
is co-curated by Siri Engberg, Curator of Visual Arts at the Walker, and
Madeleine Grynsztejn, Elise S. Haas Senior Curator of Painting and
Sculpture at SFMOMA. National sponsorship is made possible by the
global financial services firm UBS.
Opening-weekend events feature a Preview Party on Saturday, July 23,
with music by The New Standards, and a sold-out Opening-Day Artist Talk
on Sunday, July 24. (A listing of related events follows.)
CHUCK CLOSE: SELF PORTRAITS 1967-2005 NO. 52 1

Chuck Close, Self-Portrait, 2000-2001
oil on canvas
108 x 84”
Collection The Art Supporting Foundation to
the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Chuck Close, Self-Portrait/String, 1983
handmade paper pulp in 24 gray values and string
37 x 27”
Courtesy of the artist
Through more than 35 years of “isms” and art movements, Close has
remained committed to rigorous experimentation within his own carefully
defined practice, and has regularly returned to his own image as a
touchstone for his work at large. In examining this focused body of his
work, Chuck Close: Self-Portraits 1967–2005 highlights how an artist can
create a remarkable pictorial language that continues to become richer
and expand through time. “In almost every medium Close has
explored—painting, drawing, photography, paper pulp, and
printmaking—he has made self-portraits,” says Engberg. “These form a
complex and compelling body of work, in which one not only witnesses a
face changing over time, but sees the startling visual possibilities a familiar
image can engender.”
The exhibition progresses in loosely chronological order and is framed by
two major paintings: the monumental black-and-white Big Self-Portrait
(1967-1968)—the artist’s first—which the Walker purchased out of his
studio in 1969, and which was the first of Close’s paintings to enter a
museum collection; and SFMOMA’s Self-Portrait (2000-2001), a
contemporary image painted as a mosaic of dazzling color, and one of
only a few self-portraits painted at the scale of the 1968 canvas. The
Walker presented Close’s first major retrospective in 1980. Both
institutions have a long history of collecting and exhibiting the artist’s
work.
Born in Monroe, Washington, in 1940, Close graduated from the
University of Washington in Seattle in 1962. He graduated from the Yale
University School of Art and Architecture in 1964 where he studied
alongside a talented group of fellow artists, including Richard Serra, Nancy
Graves, Brice Marden, and Robert Mangold. His paintings at the time
were influenced by the work of Arshile Gorky and Willem de Kooning, but
he remained dissatisfied with abstraction’s open-endedness, and the
nagging feeling that he was painting what art should look like. While in
school, he traveled regularly to New York, became enthusiastic about Pop
art, and began to feel an urgency about pushing his work in a new
direction.
By 1967, Close had moved to New York City and abandoned the abstract
work of his school years to begin painting from photographs. “I wanted
something very specific to do, where there were rights and wrongs,” he
has remarked, “and so I decided to just use whatever happened in the
photograph. Whatever shapes were there I would have to use . . . I was
constructing a series of self-imposed limitations that would guarantee that
I could no longer make what I had been making.”
In 1968, Close completed the watershed painting Big Self-Portrait, his first
self-portrait and the first of a group of eight black and white “heads,” as
he refers to them, which included portraits of fellow artists Nancy Graves,
Richard Serra, Joe Zucker, and the composer Philip Glass. At the
monumental scale of nine by seven feet, Big Self-Portrait is made from
only a few tablespoons of water-based pigment, applied thinly so as to
CHUCK CLOSE: SELF PORTRAITS 1967-2005 NO. 52 2

Chuck Close, Self-Portrait Maquette, 1975
black-and-white Polaroid photograph scored
with pencil and masking tape with plastic
overlay
4 x 5”
Courtesy of the artist
Chuck Close, Self-Portrait, 1997
oil on canvas
102 x 84”
Collection The Museum of Modern Art, New
York
imitate the slick surface of its photographic source. It was this series of
paintings that brought Close instant recognition as an artist, and set the
course for a working method the artist has continued to the present.
Always working from photographs as the basis for his imagery, Close first
produces a maquette, comprising a photograph overlaid with a grid
template. He then proceeds to systematically transpose the image to
another surface—be it canvas, drawing paper, a printing plate, or a paper
pulp collage—square by square. Though his practice is well-defined, it is
far from rigid. Within each square, Close has chosen, as he has remarked,
to consistently “alter the variables” in his work. Whether he fills each
square with delicately airbrushed pigment, dots of pastel, inked
fingerprints, etched lines, or organic brushstrokes in vibrant color, he
continues “to find things in the rectangle and slowly sneak up on what I
want . . . to make it all happen in the rectangle instead of on the palette
and in context.” Within the broad array of self-portraits featured in this
exhibition, Close has used this method to produce works ranging from
large-scale paintings to intimate drawings to elaborate paper pulp
constructions. He is also a master printmaker, and has created selfportraits
using techniques including etching, woodcut, linoleum block
printing, and screenprinting.
Close has also been an innovator in the arena of photography, and the
exhibition will contain numerous examples of his photographic selfportraits.
One of the first artists to experiment with the large-format
Polaroid camera, he has created many portraits in the medium, including
large-scale collages of multiple photographs. In recent years, he has also
embraced the 19th-century daguerreotype technique, which he has used
to create a broad range of portraits—many of his own image—that feel
exceptionally contemporary.
Beginning in 1988, Close faced new personal and artistic challenges after
suffering a collapsed spinal artery that initially left him paralyzed from the
neck down. With time and tenacity, his condition improved, and though
dependent on a wheelchair, he was able to begin painting again with a
customized brace. The self-portraits made following this event became
more gestural than ever before, and continued Close’s explorations into
the use of a bold, unexpected color palette. Close is a highly intuitive
colorist, whose paintings have been connected to many art historical
precedents, including Byzantine mosaics and the paintings of Gustav
Klimt.
Chuck Close: Self-Portraits 1967–2005 is accompanied by a richly
illustrated 144-page catalogue documenting this body of Close’s work in
detail and across media, and includes essays by Madeleine Grynsztejn, Siri
Engberg, and Douglas R. Nickel, Director of the Center for Creative
Photography, The University of Arizona, Tucson. ($34.95; $31.46 Walker
members)
CHUCK CLOSE: SELF PORTRAITS 1967-2005 NO. 52 3

Chuck Close in his studio working on Self-Portrait
(2004-2005)
Photo: Michael Marfione
Related Events
Preview Party: See the Big Picture
Saturday, July 23, 9 pm–12 midnight
$20 ($10 Walker members)
Save $1 per ticket when ordering online.
New members joining for the event receive one free ticket.
612.375.7600 or visit walkerart.org/tickets
At this larger-than-life party celebrating the exhibition get a close look at
the big picture, hear reimagined classics by The New Standards, take in a
screening of Chuck Close: A Portrait in Progress by Marion Cajori, and
enjoy cash bars and complimentary appetizers by Wolfgang Puck Catering
throughout the evening.
Music: The New Standards
10:15–11:45 pm, Gallery 8 Café
From Blur to Bowie, Peggy Lee to Kurt Weill, The New Standards
illuminate new and cherished classics of the 20th-century songbook with
the intimate instrumentation of piano, vibes, and bass. Chan Poling of the
Suburbs, John Munson of Semisonic, and Steve Roehm of Electropolis.
Screening: Chuck Close: A Portrait in Progress
Directed by Marion Cajori
9:30 and 11 pm, Cinema
Cajori interviews Chuck Close while he’s in the process of creating new
work. 1998, U.S., color, video, 57 minutes.
Opening-Day Artist Talk: Chuck Close
Sunday, July 24, 2 pm, $20 ($10 Walker members)
William and Nadine McGuire Theater
SOLD OUT
Chuck Close talks with exhibition curators Siri Engberg and Madeleine
Grynsztejn about working with photographs, painting from the grid, and
collaborating with master printers and papermakers.
This event will be webcast live from the Walker’s site at
channel.walkerart.org.
This talk is made possible by generous support from Aaron and Carol
Mack.
CHUCK CLOSE: SELF PORTRAITS 1967-2005 NO. 52 4

Harry Mathews
Photo courtesy the artist
Community Forum
Questioning Biography: Personal History, Content, and Aesthetics in Art
Wednesday, September 7, 7 pm, Free
Gallery 8 Café
Is knowing an artist’s biography pivotal to understanding her or his work?
Tom di Maria, executive director of Creative Growth, leads a discussion on
the role of biography, culture, and disability in art-making. As head of the
first independent visual art center for adults with developmental, physical,
mental, and emotional disabilities, he questions the labels used for trained
vs. “outsider” artists, and recognizes that artists with disabilities often
straddle both worlds while making artwork that is increasingly recognized
and appreciated.
Target Free Thursday Nights
Free Verse: Harry Mathews
Thursday, September 15, 7 pm, Free
In a startling riff on the theme of self-portraiture, legendary
expatriate writer Harry Mathews—reputed to be a CIA agent
due to a series of improbable coincidences in the early
1970s—decided to act the part. In his latest novel, My Life in
CIA, Mathews documents the year 1973 as seen through his
would-be agent’s eyes, using his inimitable, experimental style
to make the journey both fascinating and fun.
Mathews is the only American member of the Oulipo, France’s
famed “Workshop for Potential Literature.” This group of writers
and mathematicians, which included Georges Perec and Italo
Calvino, used writing techniques often based on mathematical
problems. Mathews is the author of numerous works of prose
and poetry, including the acclaimed novels Cigarettes and The
Journalist, and the constricted journal 20 Lines A Day.
Free Verse is co-sponsored by Rain Taxi Review of Books.
Curator Tour
Thursday, September 22, 6 pm, Free
Meet in the Bazinet Garden Lobby
Join exhibition co-curator Siri Engberg for a walk through more
than 80 works of self-portraiture by Chuck Close. Spanning over
30 years of his artistic career, this exhibition of paintings,
drawings, photographs, collages, and prints provides a
fascinating glimpse of an artist’s self-examination over time.
Art Lab: Drawing on the Grid
Thursdays, September 15, 22, 29, 6–9 pm, Free
Star Tribune Foundation Art Lab
To create his portraits of roughly 8 x 7 feet in scale, Chuck Close
overlays a smaller photograph with a numbered and lettered
CHUCK CLOSE: SELF PORTRAITS 1967-2005 NO. 52 5

Chuck Close installing the Walker exhibition Close
Portraits, 1980
Photo: Walker Art Center Archives
grid. This technique, devised by Renaissance masters, allows the
artist to reproduce the image block by block with resounding
clarity of detail. Paint a collective, large-scale portrait in the style
of Chuck Close or draw your own enlarged image using digital
photography and the grid.
Target Free Thursday Nights are sponsored by Target.
Free First Saturday
Exhibition Tour
Inspired by Me
Saturday, August 6, 10 am–5 pm, Free
Powerful portraits abound as Free First Saturday takes its cue
from the exhibition. The daylong event features performances
by teen actors from the Youth Performance Company and
hands-on art-making sessions led by artists from Highpoint
Center for Printmaking to make self-portraits. Workshop
participants will draw inspiration from portraits on view by
children from Free Arts Minnesota, a nonprofit organization
dedicated to healing at risk children through artistic expression.
The event also includes a family tour of the exhibition, family
portraits, and storytelling.
Free First Saturday is sponsored by Coldwell Banker Burnet.
Programming is made possible by the Medtronic Foundation.
Media partner WCCO TV Channel 4.
Art-making for the Whole Family: Portrait Power is made
possible by generous support from the global financial services
firm UBS.
Walker Art Center
July 24–October 16, 2005
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
November 19, 2005–February 28, 2006
High Museum of Art, Atlanta
March 25–June 18, 2006
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York
July 22–October 22, 2006
CHUCK CLOSE: SELF PORTRAITS 1967-2005 NO. 52 6

Chuck Close, Self-Portrait, 2004-2005
oil on canvas
102 x 86”
Private Collection, New York
National sponsorship of Chuck Close: Self-Portraits 1967–2005 is made
possible by the global financial services firm UBS. UBS, one of the world’s
leading financial firms, is the largest wealth manager, a top tier investment
banking and securities firm, a key asset manager, and the leader in Swiss
retail and commercial banking. Headquartered in Zürich and Basel, UBS
employs over 68,000 people and has offices in 50 countries. It is a Swiss
public company listed on the SWX Swiss Stock Exchange, the New York
Stock Exchange (NYSE), and the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE). In the U.S.,
UBS is one of the biggest private client businesses with a client base of
nearly two million private clients and approximately 7,500 financial
advisers in over 350 offices.
Additional support for Chuck Close: Self-Portraits 1967–2005 is provided
by the National Endowment for the Arts and Margaret and Angus
Wurtele.
Walker Art Center programming is made possible by its Premier Partners:
Best Buy, General Mills, Target, Star Tribune, and WCCO-TV.
The Walker Art Center is located at 1750 Hennepin Avenue—where Hennepin meets
Lyndale—one block off Highways I-94 and I-394, Minneapolis.
For public information, call 612.375.7600, or visit walkerart.org.
CHUCK CLOSE: SELF PORTRAITS 1967-2005 NO. 52 7