due to copyright, trademark or related rights.
Paul
Chuck Close, American, born 1940
Made in United States, North and Central America
Date:
1994Medium:
Oil on canvasDimensions:
8 feet 6 inches × 7 feet (259.1 × 213.4 cm)Copyright:
© Chuck Close. Courtesy Pace Wildenstein, New YorkCuratorial Department:
Contemporary ArtObject Location:
Currently not on view
Accession Number:1994-166-1Credit Line:
Purchased with funds (by exchange) from the gift of Mr. and Mrs. Cummins Catherwood, with the Edith H. Bell Fund, and with funds contributed by the Committee on Twentieth-Century Art, 1994
This portrait of American artist Paul Cadmus (1904–1999) derives from a Polaroid photograph that Close charted with a grid pattern and transposed, unit by unit, onto a large canvas. In creating a complex map of the face, the regularity of the grid becomes a vehicle for sumptuous, inventive painting that subtly balances representation with abstraction.
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Philadelphia Museum of Art Handbook (2014 Edition)This full-face portrait of American artist Paul Cadmus is representative of the unique painting method Chuck Close has employed since the 1960s. Working from black-and-white Polaroid photographs that he takes himself, Close covers them with a grid pattern and transposes the images onto monumental canvases. His iconic paintings coalesce into grand, cohesive portraits only when viewed from afar; at close range they remain abstract arrangements of colors and shapes. By highlighting the tension between paint’s materiality and its power of illusionistic description, Closes’s portraits challenge the viewer’s perception. Ann Temkin and Adelina Vlas, from Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2014, p. 411.