He eventually learned to paint again using brushes strapped to his hands with Velcro, and canvases his assistants prepped with grids. But he was forced to make a drastic change in 1988, when a collapsed spinal artery left him mostly paralyzed from the neck down. He added color in the 1970s, and drifted away from the strict photorealism of Big Self-Portrait towards a brushier, looser look. How the big heads were madeД¬lose's style changed over time. His parents encouraged him, paying for art supplies and lessons he told the New York Times Magazine in 1998 that he remembered staying up late, poring over magazine covers with a magnifying glass, ''trying to figure out how paintings got made,'' which might perhaps have been a hint at where his career would ultimately go. It was a bold opening statement from someone who went on to become one of the best-known portraitists of his generation, who died today at age 81.Д¬lose was born in Washington State in 1940, and as a child struggled with what he later realized was dyslexia-but art was never a struggle. You can see every spike of stubble, every wisp of uncombed hair, every curl of smoke from his cigarette. Gigantic, up close and personal, his black and white 1968 Big Self-Portrait leaves nothing to the imagination. Roberto Serra - Iguana Press/Getty ImagesД¬huck Close's face made him famous - his face on canvas, that is. Artist Chuck Close at a 2019 exhibition of his work in Ravenna, Italy.

Famous portraiture artist