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Home>Yes No Maybe Introduction>Yes No Maybe Close Introduction>Yes No Maybe Close John 

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Exhibition Introduction

Note to the ReaderAcknowledgments

IntroductionKeithJohnLeslieSelf-Portrait

IntroductionTouched RedGreenCombinationHigh Green Version 1

Introduction17 Drawings by ThoreauSeven Day Diary (Not Knowing)Changes and DisappearancesWhere R=RyoanjiFireThe Missing Stone 75 StonesEninkaStonesWhere There is Where There

IntroductionAnne ApplebyPia FriesDarren AlmondSusan MiddletonJoel FisherBrad BrownTom Marioni

IntroductionMamma AnderssonSol LeWittFred WilsonRobert BechtleKiki Smith

IntroductionJulie MehretuWayne ThiebaudJockum NordströmTomma AbtsNathan OliveiraChris Ofili

IntroductionPat SteirLaura OwensWayne ThiebaudAmy Sillman

# Chuck Close, John, 1972

Chuck Close, John, 1972
*John*(working proof for unpublished print)1972color photo-etchingsheet: 10 1⁄2 × 8 13⁄16 (26.7 × 22.4)Crown Point Press© Chuck Close, Courtesy Pace Gallery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*John* (working proof for unpublished print)1972color photo-etchingsheet: 10 3⁄4 × 12 5⁄8 (27.3 × 32.1)Crown Point Press© Chuck Close, Courtesy Pace Gallery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*John*(working proof for unpublished print)1972photo-etching in blacksheet: 23 3⁄4 × 14 3⁄4 (60.3 × 37.5)Crown Point Press© Chuck Close, Courtesy Pace Gallery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*John*(working proof for unpublished print)1972color photo-etching and softground etchingplate: 27 3⁄4 × 21 7⁄8 (70.5 × 55.6)sheet: 29 × 22 7⁄8 (73.7 × 58.1)Crown Point Press© Chuck Close,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*John* (working proof for unpublished print)1972color photo-etchingplate: 44 3⁄4 × 35 1⁄2 (113.7 × 90.2)sheet: 53 1⁄2 × 42 1⁄8 (136 × 107)Crown Point Press© Chuck Close, Courtesy Pace Gallery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.

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

 

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