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Exhibition Introduction

Note to the Reader
Acknowledgments


Introduction
Keith
John
Leslie
Self-Portrait

Introduction
Touched Red
Green
Combination
High Green Version 1

Introduction
17 Drawings by Thoreau
Seven Day Diary (Not Knowing)
Changes and Disappearances
Where R=Ryoanji
Fire
The Missing Stone
75 Stones
Eninka
Stones
Where There is Where There

Introduction
Anne Appleby
Pia Fries
Darren Almond
Susan Middleton
Joel Fisher
Brad Brown
Tom Marioni

Introduction
Mamma Andersson
Sol LeWitt
Fred Wilson
Robert Bechtle
Kiki Smith

Introduction
Julie Mehretu
Wayne Thiebaud
Jockum Nordström
Tomma Abts
Nathan Oliveira
Chris Ofili

Introduction
Pat Steir
Laura Owens
Wayne Thiebaud
Amy Sillman

Chuck Close, John, 1972

Chuck Close, John, 1972

John (working proof for unpublished print)
1972
color photo-etching
sheet: 10 1⁄2 × 8 13⁄16 (26.7 × 22.4)
Crown Point Press
© Chuck Close, Courtesy Pace Gallery
Chuck Close, John, 1972

John (working proof for unpublished print)
1972
color photo-etching
sheet: 10 3⁄4 × 12 5⁄8 (27.3 × 32.1)
Crown Point Press
© Chuck Close, Courtesy Pace Gallery
Chuck Close, John, 1972

John (working proof for unpublished print)
1972
photo-etching in black
sheet: 23 3⁄4 × 14 3⁄4 (60.3 × 37.5)
Crown Point Press
© Chuck Close, Courtesy Pace Gallery
Chuck Close, John, 1972

John (working proof for unpublished print)
1972
color photo-etching and softground etching
plate: 27 3⁄4 × 21 7⁄8 (70.5 × 55.6)
sheet: 29 × 22 7⁄8 (73.7 × 58.1)
Crown Point Press
© Chuck Close, Courtesy Pace Gallery
Chuck Close, John, 1972

John (working proof for unpublished print)
1972
color photo-etching
plate: 44 3⁄4 × 35 1⁄2 (113.7 × 90.2)
sheet: 53 1⁄2 × 42 1⁄8 (136 × 107)
Crown Point Press
© Chuck Close, Courtesy Pace Gallery

Disinterested in using photo-etching to create a naturalistic image, Close innovated. Here he had the plate inked so that various parts of the composition reveal the primary colors used and the secondary color combinations yielded by their overlap. This work breaks down the process by which a full-color photo-etching is produced. It also clearly prompted his experimentally inked 2010 Self-Portrait and a collage study that Close assembled in 2013.

During Close’s first visit to Crown Point Press he attempted a photo-etching, in which etched plates inked in magenta, cyan, and yellow are sequentially printed to produce a full-color photographic image. Close was, at this time, making airbrush paintings using a similar tricolor procedure (see below). After a number of small test proofs were pulled, Close decided that he was not interested in a straightforward photomechanical print and discontinued the project.

John in Progress, 1971-1972

Chuck Close, John, an airbrush painting in progress, recorded in time-lapse photographs, 1971–1972, © Chuck Close, Courtesy Pace Gallery

Banner image: Detail, Chuck Close, John (proof for unpublished print), 1972, color photo-etching on wove paper, Gift of Kathan Brown © Chuck Close, Courtesy Pace Gallery

Next: Chuck Close, Leslie, 1986

"Yes, No, Maybe: The Art of Making
Decisions," lecture by exhibition curators Judith Brodie and Adam Greenhalgh (audio)

Julie Mehretu, artist, in conversation with curator Judith Brodie, Diamonstein-Spielvogel lecture (audio)

"An Insider's Perspective," lecture by Kathan Brown, founder of Crown Point Press (audio)

Exhibition tour by curators Judith Brodie and Adam Greenhalgh (audio)

Chuck Close in the collection of the National Gallery of Art

Crown Point Press prints in the collection of the National Gallery of Art

 

Press release