Chuck Close

"Chuck Thomas Close (1940- ) was born in Monroe, Washington. He received a BA from the University of Washington in Seattle in 1962 and an MFA from Yale University in 1964. After Yale, he lived in Europe for a while on a Fulbright grant. When he returned to the United States, he worked as an art teacher at the University of Massachusetts.
He is best known as a photorealist, through his massive-scale portraits of family and friends and other artists. Though a catastrophic spinal artery collapse in 1988 left him severely paralyzed, he has continued to paint and produce work that explore different approaches to Photorealism.
Close's first one-man show was in 1970. His work was first exhibited at the New York Museum of Modern Art in early 1973. In 1979 his work was included in the Whitney Biennial. He has been represented by The Pace Gallery, in New York since 1977. In 2000, Close was awarded the National Medal of Arts.
Close has worked with a variety of media to produce his portraits. A photo of Philip Glass was included in his black and white series in 1969, the image was redone with water colors in 1977, again redone with stamp pad and fingerprints in 1978, and then done with gray handmade paper in 1982. Close has also experimented with daguerreotype photography and tapestry.
Close currently lives and paints in Bridgehampton, New York.
Source: Wikipedia"