All of Close's works are based on photographs he takes himself. Close always follows the same guidelines in planning a painting. The source photograph is a tightly cropped head and shoulder shot. The subject is a family member or friend. The finished work is always titled by the subject's first name alone (with the exception of "Self-Portrait"). This decision was intended to project an au

Close's repertory of marks has changed dramatically. In place of the discreet dots and miniature strokes of his early work, not to mention the pictures constructed of fingerprints he made in the early'80s, each of the enlarged squares in the new grids contains colorful, painterly marks that function as mini- abstract paintings of their own. Concentric circles, lozenges, hot dog and doughnut-like shapes, and freeform squiggles are the building blocks of his new faces. His palette has expanded from black and white and color images based on the three primaries to one that tilts toward yellow and flesh tones at one extreme, and deep purples and blues on the other.

Close's work falls into two periods, the early and the middle, in which he is now fruitfully engaged. It is easy to divide the two periods on either side

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Chuck Close, source photograph,
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Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)