"Documenting Chuck Close's vital engagement with photography over the course of many decades, this book offers the first full critical assessment of his work behind the camera. Beautifully produced, this unique volume traces Close's ambitious innovations in a medium he never intended to master. It presents the full spectrum of Close's camera work, from early Polaroids to large-format composites, studio maquettes, holograms, daguerreotypes, and Woodburytypes. The illustrations vary from Close's signature portraits and self-portraits to nudes, flowers, and delightful outtakes from sessions with celebrity subjects. With a penetrating essay by Colin Westerbeck and a fascinating conversation with the artist about his personal vision of photography, this book is destined to become an indispensable publication on one of the art world's most talented and intriguing figures. It will offer new insights into Close's creative process as well as his courageous and resourceful forays into a uniquely

Presents an autobiography about the author's artistic life, describing the creative processes he uses in the studio and his struggles with his disabilities. Includes a self-portrait mix-and-match section with divided pages to flip, that demonstrates his techniques and images.

In December 1988, at a high point of his career, a collapsed spinal artery left the painter Chuck Close paralyzed from the shoulders down. He was famous by then for his monumental portraits that deconstructed the conventional notions of identity and personality. Now Close was forced to confront his own identity: could a paralyzed man make monumental art? Three years later, a show of new Close paintings appeared; to the astonishment of the art world, they were as large and powerful as ever. Not only had he found a way to paint his physically demanding portraits again; they had also been transformed. A more impressionistic and dynamic vision now throbbed from his canvases with new emotional intensity. In this book, Close has collaborated with his friend, playwright John Guare, to produce a narrative account that tells the story of what Close calls "the event": the day of the trauma itself, the months of slowly recovering the minimal movement that allows him to still paint, and the transf