Chuck Close: Self-Portrait/Scribble/Etching Portfolio, 2000
Chuck Close, one of the most prolific and inventive portrait painters of the last few decades, is also an innovative printmaker. For Self-Portrait/Scribble/Etching Portfolio, he chose the process of soft-ground etching.
Placing a piece of paper over the soft, waxy “ground” that covered each of twelve different metal plates, Close used a different colored pencil to make scribbled drawings on each plate. When he lifted the paper from each plate, some of the waxy ground pulled away, leaving bare metal where the pencil had made its impressions. Next he immersed the plate in a bath of acid that etched only the bare metal exposed by the drawing.
Close then inked each plate with a color corresponding to a different one of his twelve colored pencils. He printed each plate three times, creating a plate proof (a print with a single color), a progressive proof (a print showing the progression of the image as each color was added), and the final print (the accumulation of all the colors).
Usually, a single print made like this, from successive printings of multiple plates, incorporates only five or six plates. Close’s impressive use of twelve plates to create this work resulted in a densely layered and colorful image.
The final image, though a self-portrait, barely reveals any intimate emotional mood or expressive feeling. Close’s identity is revealed instead in his process. A rainbow of tangled lines featuring a soft, gestural quality brings the surface of the prints alive with the spontaneous movements of the artist’s hand. By offering the proofs for exhibition, Close foregrounds his working method and reveals the aspect of his identity as an artist that is creative, methodical, rigorous, and ambitious.
Rachael Arauz, Guest Curator
Click here to download the gallery brochure for this exhibit. (PDF, 8.5×11, double-sided)
Self-Portrait/Scribble/Etching Portfolio, 2000 is sponsored in part by Potter Stewart, Jr. Law Offices. It is exhibited courtesy of Pace Editions, Inc., New York City.
