Chuck Close Quotes

• Amateurs look for inspiration; the rest of us just get up and go to work.

  Chuck Close

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Inspiration

• You know, the way art history is taught, often there’s nothing that tells you why the painting is great. The description of a lousy painting and the description of a great painting will very much sound the same.

  Chuck Close

  Topics in History, Uncategorized

  Tags in Nothing, Description

• What difference does it make whether you’re looking at a photograph or looking at a still life in front of you? You still have to look.

  Chuck Close

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Looking, Difference

• Sometimes I really want to paint somebody and I don’t get a photograph that I want to work from.

  Chuck Close

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Sometimes, Somebody

• Sculpture occupies real space like we do… you walk around it and relate to it almost as another person or another object.

  Chuck Close

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Person, Sculpture, Object

• Part of the joy of looking at art is getting in sync in some ways with the decision-making process that the artist used and the record that’s embedded in the work.

  Chuck Close

  Topics in Decision

  Tags in Record, Process

• Painting is the most magical of mediums. The transcendence is truly amazing to me every time I go to a museum and I see how somebody figured another way to rub colored dirt on a flat surface and make space where there is no space or make you think of a life experience.

  Chuck Close

  Topics in Experience

  Tags in Amazing, Magical, Truly

• Most people are good at too many things. And when you say someone is focused, more often than not what you actually mean is they’re very narrow.

  Chuck Close

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People, Someone, Things

• It’s always a pleasure to talk about someone else’s work.

  Chuck Close

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Pleasure, About

• It doesn’t upset artists to find out that artists used lenses or mirrors or other aids, but it certainly does upset the art historians.

  Chuck Close

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Find, Artists, Certainly

• I’m very learning-disabled, and I think it drove me to what I’m doing.

  Chuck Close

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Learning, Think

• I’m plagued with indecision in my life. I can’t figure out what to order in a restaurant.

  Chuck Close

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Indecision, Figure, Order

• I wanted to translate from one flat surface to another. In fact, my learning disabilities controlled a lot of things. I don’t recognize faces, so I’m sure it’s what drove me to portraits in the first place.

  Chuck Close

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Learning, Things, Recognize

• I think most paintings are a record of the decisions that the artist made. I just perhaps make them a little clearer than some people have.

  Chuck Close

  Topics in Decisions

  Tags in Little, Record

• I discovered about 150 dots is the minimum number of dots to make a specific recognizable person. You can make something that looks like a head, with fewer dots, but you won’t be able to give much information about who it is.

  Chuck Close

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Person, Something, Information

• I did some pastels and I did other pieces in which there was just basically one color per square, and then they would get bigger and I could get 2 or 3 colors into the square, and ultimately I just started making oil paintings.

  Chuck Close

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Started, Making, Paintings

• I always thought that one of the reasons why a painter likes especially to have other painters look at his or her work is the shared experience of having pushed paint around.

  Chuck Close

  Topics in Experience

  Tags in Thought, Reasons

• All the fingerprint paintings are done without a grid.

  Chuck Close

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Without, Paintings

Chuck Close (18)

Birth:	5th July, 1940
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Painter, Photographer

About

Charles Thomas "Chuck" Close was born in  Monroe, Washington. He is an American painter and photographer who achieved fame as a photorealist, through his massive-scale portraits. He is known for using creative and intricate patterns to portray a human portrait. In 1962, Close received his B.A. from the University of Washington in Seattle. In 1961 he won a coveted scholarship to the Yale Summer School of Music and Art, and the following year entered the graduate degree program at Yale University, where he received his MFA in 1964.

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