American - Artist | July 5, 1940 -
Losing my father at a tender age was extremely important in being able to accept what happened to me later when I became a quadriplegic.
Chuck Close
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I knew from the age of five what I wanted to do. The one thing I could do was draw. I couldn't draw that much better than some of the other kids, but I cared more and I wanted it badly.
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No one was more surprised than me when my paintings started selling, except maybe my dealer.
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My mother was a piano teacher, my father an inventor. He invented the reflective paint they still use on airstrips. They had faith in my ambition, and I think that made all the difference.
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Painting is a lie. It's the most magic of all media, the most transcendent. It makes space where there is no space.
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The first thing I do is take Polaroids of the sitter - 10 or 12 color Polaroids and eight or 10 black-and whites.
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I don't want the viewer to be able to peel away the layers of my painting like the layers of an onion and find that all the blues are on the same level.
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There's something Zen-like about the way I work - it's like raking gravel in a Zen Buddhist garden.
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I'm very interested in how we read things, especially the link between seeing two-dimensional and three-dimensional images, because of how I read.
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Ease is the enemy of the artist. When things get too easy, you're in trouble.
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I don't care about the Guggenheim. The Guggenheim isn't involved in anything that I am interested in. I don't care about motorcycles and Armani suits.
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Any artist who goes to Las Vegas is an idiot as far as I am concerned. Whoever goes to Las Vegas can stay in Las Vegas.
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