Exhibitions: Chuck Close Portraits Chuck Close : interview 1980 Chuck Close discusses his work, 'Big Self-Portrait' 1968, in art storage. User-EX.80.15 camera 1 User-EX.80.16 camera 2 WAC presented the exhibition 'Chuck Close Portraits' 9/28/80--11/16/80, and was the first comprehensive exhibition of his work. Organized by WAC, this major retrospective presented drawings, pastels, watercolors, prints and photographs thematically grouped around 15 monumental portrait heads that Close had produced since 1968. Close has radically transformed the concept of portraiture. Beginning with his 1968 Self Portrait, he has explored the human face through a series of colossal portrait heads. When his gigantic black and white, airbrushed canvases appeared in the late sixties, their apparent realism attracted extensive critical attention. These works and a group of full-color portraits begun in 1971 were first associated with Pop Art and later with the work of a younger generation of New Realist painters including Don Eddy and Richard Estes. However, his paintings have much in common with the work of such abstract artists as Don Judd and Sol LeWitt; his mammoth heads, isolated against neutral fields, are as cool and static as any minimalist cube. In conjunction with 'Chuck Close Portraits,' the WAC published an illustrated catalogue. In addition, a slide-tape documenting close's work from 1968-1980 was shown during the exhibition, and Close presented a public slide lecture on 10/15/80. After its premiere at WAC, 'Chuck Close Portraits' traveled to the St. Louis Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
	Archive Details Format: 3/4” umatic Generation: master Length: 30:37 Accession Number: 94.V0349 Format: 3/4" umatic Generation: master Length: 32:20 Accession Number: 94.V0350 Director: Walker Art Center Executive producer: Walker Art Center Production company: Walker Art Center Type: Video Classification: Painting Copyright: 1980 Credit Line: Walker Art Center Archives: Sound and Moving Image Collections