For the last half-decade, Chuck Close examined portraiture through painting, photography, and printmaking, focusing mainly on self-portraits or portraits of friends and fellow artists. Close gained recognition early in his career for his large-scale photorealist paintings and drawings rendered in black and white that he reproduced from gridded photographs. In the 1970s, Close began incorporating color into his work, utilizing a new technique wherein he constructed an image using a grid of individual colored squares. Up close, each square appears to be its own abstract painting. Yet, when they are viewed from afar, they form a highly realistic portrait. Close suffers from prosopagnosia, or face blindness, and has said that painting portraits allow him to recognize and remember faces better.