About the Book
Chuck Close--a man who describes himself as "an artist looking for trouble"--has for three decades consistently but variously challenged the accepted boundaries of the printmaking tradition. Published to accompany a retrospective of his prints opening at Blaffer Gallery and traveling to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and several additional museums around the country, this is the first comprehensive survey of Close's revolutionary prints. Featuring exquisite reproductions of the prints together with essays on Close's career and in-depth interviews with the artist and his master printmakers, the volume blends words and images to give readers unique insight into the creative process. The text highlights the intensely collaborative nature of Close's project and looks into the challenges posed by the unprecedented huge scale he prefers. Close may labor on a single print for as long as two years, working out aesthetic problems that might involve the retrieval of a centuries-old European method on one day and the creation of an entirely new technique (such as applying sunscreen to block light) the next.
"Prints have moved me in my unique work more than anything else has," Close says."Prints change the way I think about things." From the artist's ambitious first mezzotint to his recent pulp-paper multiples, this book chronicles the genius of Chuck Close in the medium in which he has done his most exciting work. Taken together, these prints constitute a remarkable self-portrait of the creative drive, vision, and intellect of one of America's most important living artists.
EXHIBITION SCHEDULE Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston September 13-November 23, 2003 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York January 13-April 18, 2004 Miami Art Museum, Florida May 14-August 22, 2004 Knoxville Museum of Art, Tennessee October 29, 2004-March 27, 2005 Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, North Carolina April 16-August 7, 2005 Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts September 6-December 4, 2005 Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas April 16-June 28, 2006 Madison Museum of Contemporary Art in Madison, Wisconsin July 29 - October 6, 2006 Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA January 28-April 20, 2007 Boise Art Museum, Idaho May 12-August 11, 2007 Portland Art Museum, Oregon September-December 2007
Table of Contents:
INTRODUCTION: Chuck Close Prints by Terrie Sultan 9 Through a Slow Medium by Terrie Shiff 19 Process and Collaboration interviews with Chuck Close and the Printers 45 Mezzotint by Kathan Brown, Crown Point Press 47 Pulp-Paper Multiples by Ruth Lingen and Mae Shore, Pace Editions, INc., and Paul Wong, Dieu Donni? Papermill, Inc. Spitbite Etching by Bill Hall and Julia D'Amario, Pace Editions, Inc. 77 Reduction Linoleum by Ruth Lingen, Pace Editions, Inc., and Robert Blanton and Thomas Little, Brand X Editions 85 Silk Screen by Robert Blanton and Thomas Little, Brand X Editions 97 Japanese-Style Woodcut by Yasu Shibata, Pace Editions, Inc. 111 European-Style Woodcut by Karl Hecksher 121 Scribble Etching by Bill Hall and Julia D'Amario, Pace Edition Inc. 129 CHRONOLOGY: A Career in Printmaking by Alexandra Irvine 141 GLOSSARY 148 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 152 EXHIBITION TOUR 154 INDEX 155
About the Author :
Terrie Sultan is Director and Chief Curator of Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston. Her publications include "Seeing and Believing: The Art of Nancy Burson, Kerry James Marshall," and "Ida Applebroog: Nothing Personal". Richard Shiff is Effie Marie Cain Regents Chair in Art at the University of Texas. The author of "Cezanne and the End of Impressionism", he is coauthor of "Willem de Kooning: Tracing the Figure" (Princeton) and the editor of several other books.
Review :
If seen by enough people, Chuck Close Prints should go a long way toward correcting many misunderstandings about prints, not least the misapprehension that they must be the handmaiden to painting, a kind of 'quick fix.' For Close, who has a penchant for the conceptual reversals requisite in printmaking ... prints have offered an unqualified extension of his practice, both expressive and technical. -- Faye Hirsch, Art in America There have been numerous catalogs from exhibitions in which Close's prints were included and about a dozen on Close alone in the last ten years... However, this catalog is one of the best ones. -- "Choice Chuck Close, the great postmodern pointillist printmaker, is a methodical perfectionist. Fittingly, Terrie Sultan goes much deeper than the usual artist appreciation in Chuck Close Prints. After Sultan's introduction and an essay by Richard Shiff, an art professor at the University of Texas, Austin, whole chapters are devoted to each type of printmaking that Close has mastered. -- Ted Loos, New York Times Book Review
