Chuck Close, A Man with many styles

“I am not trying to make facsimiles of photographs. Neither am I interested in the icon of the head as a total image. I don’t want the viewer to see the whole head at once and assume that that’s the most important aspect of my painting. I am not making Pop personality posters like the ones they sell in the village. That’s why I choose to do portraits of my friends – individuals that most people will not recognize. I don’t want the viewer to recognize the head of Castro and think he has understood my work.”
Chuck Close

In the late 1950’s and 1960’s there was an art movement in the United States that changed the way Americans viewed art. This movement was called Pop Art. During this time, Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning helped put America in the spot light within the art world. A spin-off of Pop Art was a small movement called Photo Realism. This small movement is where Chuck Close made his mark in the art world.
While attending Yale U...