Chuck Close studied painting and printmaking at Yale University in the early 1960s, where he spent time looking through Yale's print collection.
He writes "We were allowed to see and touch remarkable prints by Rembrandt and Durer, among others. I could study state proofs of Rembrandt's Descent from the Cross, and I was able to clearly see the choices and decisions that Rembrandt had made. I could hold them a few inches from my nose, I could touch them and feel the tooth of the etching. Most important, I could see the process evolve through the progressive states. I really understood printmaking for the first time then."
You can do the same (except for the touching) by visiting the print collection at the British Museum, see previous blog entry 'Find out more about Prints', 18.1.2010.
Close has developed a strategy for mapping the world, a system of small abstract marks that accumulate to make a representational whole. He describes the way he works as a series of corrections, building images layer by layer. His prints can take more that 2 years to print, and although he works with a team of printmakers in different print studios, he prefers to keep control of the process by drawing and cutting the plates himself, wherever possible.
He says "Prints change the way I think about things" and credits the process of printmaking as initiating the changes that have taken place in his paintings. He revisits the same subject matter, for instance, portraits of Phil (Philip Glass, the composer ) or Alex (Alex Katz, the painter) but reinterprets and uses fresh techniques to make new images. The Japanese-style ukiko-e woodcut 'Alex', 1991, uses 95 colours and 47 woodblocks to make the image, the blocks for this print and others in this style cut by a master printmaker.
To read more about Chuck Close, start with this book:
'Chuck Close Prints, Process and Collaboration" by Terrie Sultan,
library reference 769.92 (CLO)S.
To find out more about the Print studios he worked with, follow these links:
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