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.

Over the last 50 years, Chuck Close (born 1940) has produced one of the largest, most ambitious, and experimental bodies of contemporary prints, and his work can be found in major institutions throughout the world.

He has been the subject of solo exhibitions at numerous institutions including Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg; Art Institute of Chicago; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Hayward Gallery, London among others. Close is a recipient of the National Medal of Arts and the Skowhegan Arts Medal.