Chuck Close, monumental portrait artist, dies at 81 following career marked by innovation and controversy

Chuck Close, the American artist renowned for his monumental grid-based portraits, has died at age 81. Born in 1940 in Monroe, Washington, Close studied at the University of Washington, Seattle and Yale University. His early photorealist self-portraits and studies of associates in the 1960s evolved into vast, pixelated portraits of fellow artists like Cindy Sherman, Philip Glass, and Kara Walker, composed of thousands of individual elements that coalesced into recognizable images from a distance. A 1988 spinal injury left him wheelchair-bound, prompting innovative adaptations like strapping brushes to his wrist. In 2017, multiple women accused Close of sexual harassment during portrait sessions dating back to 2005, allegations that emerged during the #MeToo movement and led the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC to cancel a planned exhibition. Close expressed regret if he made women uncomfortable but denied harassment claims. Pace Gallery chairman Arne Glimcher mourned his death, calling Close 'one of my dearest friends and greatest artists of our time' whose work remains integral to 20th- and 21st-century art.