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American artist, Chuck Close (born 1940 in Monroe, Washington), is one of the top names associated with both Pop Art and Photo-Realism. He is known for his black and white grid face portraits, “heads” of people’s faces that are not idealized, and since the late 1960s has been a mainstay of the contemporary art scene.

Biography
Chuck Close (1940 – )

Born in Monroe, Washington, Chuck Close is one of the top names associated with both Pop Art and Photo-Realism. He is known for his black and white grid face portraits, “heads” of people’s faces that are not idealized, and since the late 1960s has been a mainstay of the contemporary art scene. He earned B.F.A. and M.F.A. degrees with highest honors from Yale University and spent 1964 to 1965 in Austria on a Fulbright Scholarship. He taught briefly at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and in 1967 moved to New York where to 1971 he taught at the School of Visual Arts. He married Leslie Rose, a landscape historian, and they have daughters, Georgia and Maggie.
Close became an admirer of Abstract Expressionists Mark Rothco, Jackson Pollock, and especially Willem de Kooning, but decided he could only do weak impersonations of their work. He followed his own desire to make original forms, to paint people the way a camera sees them, and he became the only one of his New York abstract artist circle using realistic images.

At first, he rejected color and the sensual qualities of paint and restricted himself to minimal elements of diluted black water-based acrylic paint, systematically applying it square by square to a grid. He based his work on photos he took of himself and his friends and would identify the painting only by the first name of the sitter.

In the 1970s, he experimented with collage and color, airbrushing acrylic paint and simulating the mechanical process of color-photo printing. In 1988, he suffered the collapse of a blood vessel in his spinal column, which left him paralyzed from the waist down and confined him to a wheelchair. But within a year, he resumed painting with brushes strapped to his right hand. He brings his subjects to his photo studio in SoHo where he makes large polaroids and then has an assistant place clear acetate and draws a grid. He works from the upper left corner systematically across the surface. He is a strong family man who tries to avoid celebrity status and celebrity portraits. He is adamant about keeping his work affordable for ordinary collectors. His first retrospective was in 1981 at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and in 1998, another one was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Curriculum Vitae
Chuck Close

1940 Born in Monroe, WA on July 5

1963 B.F.A. Yale University School of Art and Architecture, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

1964 M.F.A. Yale University School of Art and Architecture, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

1965 University of Washington, Seattle, WA

1965 Fullbright Grant, Akademie der Bildenden Kunste, Vienna

1966 Resident Artist, The American Academy in Rome, Italy

2000 Awarded National Medal of Arts, Washington, D.C. USA

Selected Exhibitions

2004 Chuck Close Prints: Process and Collaboration : The Met, New York, NY, USA

2004 Neue Editionen : Edition Schellmann, Munich, Germany

2003 Hyperrealismes USA, 1965-1975 : Strasbourg CMAM, Strasbourg

2002 Recent Paintings : Pace Wildenstein, New York, NY, USA

2001 Points of Departure : San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

2001 About Faces, C&M Arts, New York, NY

2000 The American Century: Art & Culture 1900-2000, Whitney Museum, New York, NY

2000 Chuck Close: Daguerreotypes : Galerie Daniel Blau, Munich, Germany

1999 Portraits, Trans Hudson Gallery, New York, NY

1998 Chuck Close, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

1998 The Artist’s Eye: Will Barnet Selects from the Collection, National Academy Museum, New York, NY

1997 Project Painting, Basilico fine Arts, New York, NY

1997 Project Painting, Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York, NY

1997 Systematic, Karen McCready Fine Art, New York, NY

1997 In-Form, Bravin Post Lee Gallery, New York, NY

1997 Photorealism’s Greatest Hits, Louis K. Meiel Gallery, New York, NY

1997 Chuck Close: Large-Scale Photographs, PaceWildensteinMacGill, Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, CA

1980 Printed Art: A View of Two Decades, Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA

1979 Copie Conforme?, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France

1971 Recent Work, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, USA
Rotating Exhibition, Jim Kempner Fine Art, New York, NY

Statement
“From the very beginning, what I wanted to do was mitigate against the standard hierarchy of the portrait. ” -Chuck Close

A landscape painter in the tonal style and figures; Benjamin Osro Eggleston was born in Belvidere, MN and studied art at the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts under Douglas Volk. He also traveled to Paris where he completed additional studies in the true French academic method. Upon his return he established a studio in Brooklyn from which he worked and traveled. From 1900 to 1920 he summered at the Old Lyme Art Colony and in the 1930’s he spent his time in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts.


Member:
Salmagundi Club
Brooklyn Society of Artists
All American Artists
President of the Brooklyn Art Club

Exhibited:
National Academy
Art Institute of Chicago
Pennsylvania Academy
Boston Art Club
Paris Salons
Carnegie Institute
Brooklyn Art Association

George Armfield Smith (for by this name he was known until the year 1840) was born in Wales. (Actually Bristol: according to Armfield family information) His father was a painter, who for some time had a studio at 54, Pall Mall, London, (His father was the portrait painter William Armfield Hobday (1771-1831)) and from his father, George Armfield obtained any artistic tuition he may have received.


This probably was not very systematic, and, we may suppose, did not suffice to reveal the considerable artistic talent the boy possessed, for, so far from encouraging the taste for drawing which he displayed at an early age, his father apprenticed him to a maker of fishing tackle (Armfield was probably apprenticed to Maria Ustonson of 205 Fleet St., London, who later became William Armfield Hobday’s 2nd wife, and who was the mother of Armfield’s half-brother, Alfred Hobday). It may be that George’s early promise was overshadowed by that of a brother, William, for William was given a regular art education, and was sent to Rome to prosecute his studies. George did not serve his full term of apprenticeship. Before he was sixteen years old he devoted himself to painting, and, as his works found ready sale, his career as an artist was assured.


He seems to have been fortunate beyond the majority of youthful painters; he knew no years of struggle for recognition; he found patrons at once, and made a comfortable livelihood, being able to keep his horse almost from boyhood.


He married when only seventeen or eighteen years of age, stronger proof, perhaps, of indiscretion than sufficiency of income! He first exhibited in the year 1839, at the British Institution, when he showed two pictures, the “Study of a Dog’s Head” and “Terrier chasing a Rabbit.” These works must have attracted notice, for in the SPORTING MAGAZINE of the following year, 1840, we find the first of a long series of his pictures which were engraved for that publication.


In 1840 he exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy, showing two pictures, “Fox and Wild Rabbits” and “Terrier and Rabbit,” and, as the lists show, he continued to exhibit with regularity at both the Academy and the British Institution for the ensuing twenty years. He also sent pictures frequently to the Suffolk Street exhibitions. The British Institution catalogue gives his address in 1839 as 15, Lamb’s Conduit Passage; but if he resided there at this time, he could not have remained long, as he spent practically all his life at Camberwell, Clapham, and Brixton.


His services were in much request to make portraits of horses and hounds, and he was a frequent guest at country houses; on one occasion he spent three months at Earl Fitzwilliam’ s, painting portraits in the stable and kennel. George Armfield’s success as a painter of animals was largely due to the love of them, which was the salient point in his character; he always had a miniature “zoo” at his house, and possessed wonderful influence over all animals.


Somewhat curiously, he was at the same time an ardent sportsman, and delighted in cock fighting and dog fighting, as well as in shooting, hunting and racing. Among his possessions were a chestnut mare, winner of numerous matches, and a famous bull terrier named “Billy.” He was very fond of hunting, and was a remarkably fine horseman. Dr. R.W. Leftwich, to Temple Chambers, writes of him: “Armfield was not only a painter of animals, but he could make them do anything. One of the finest riders I ever knew, I remember seeing him make his horse jump over a large bonfire. On one occasion he rode up Regent Street on an apparently lame horse, amid the jeers of the ‘bus drivers, right in front of the Horse Guards; but when the band struck up he made the horse dance to the music, and an officer rode up to him and offered any money he liked to ask for the horse.


Dr. Leftwich, who knew Armfield during the last thirty years of his life, owns a silver cup won by the artist in a point-to-point race. A sporting match undertaken by him attracted a good deal of attention at the time. He backed himself to ride an old circus mare a mile over hurdles, dismounting and remounting at each hurdle, against two good runners, Pudney and Jackson, who were to run each half a mile. Armfield nearly lost his wager, owing to the fact that the mare became excited and he had difficulty in remounting after the last hurdle.


He had a great love of the prize-ring, and was an intimate friend of the famous Tom Sayers, with whom he used to attend race meetings; his associates, indeed, were always sporting men, and he had few friends if any, among men of his own calling.


Armfield made money easily, and for many years, says Dr. Leftwich, he, earned 1000 pounds a year; but he spent as easily as he earned. In his careless, openhandedness he seems to have resembled George Morland [Who was a friend of his father’s], for when in funds he would give away bank notes where any other man would have given silver. Unlike Morland, however, he could apply himself steadily to work. He used to bet very heavily, and once lost 500 pounds at a race meeting, whether he had gone with his friend Tom Sayers. On the day after the races he went to his studio and allowed himself neither rest nor amusement, until he had earned 500 pounds, to make up for his betting losses.


He was a rapid worker, and, as the list of exhibits at the British Artists’ tells, obtained fair prices for his pictures. Dogs, usually sporting dogs, figure largely in Armfield’s works, and he painted them with remarkable skill and insight; his foxes, otters, deer and rabbits also display close study and his gift of portraying animal character. His best period extended from 1840 to about 1869, and during these years his output was large. About 1870 his sight began to fail, and in 1872 he submitted to an operation on one of his eyes at Guy’s Hospital, when Dr. Bader removed the lens. The operation was only partially successful, and his powers rapidly declined, he became the victim of fits of acute depression, in one of which he attempted to take his own life.


He recovered from the self-inflicted wound, and continued to paint, but latterly was able to work only with the aid of a powerful glass and on small canvases. So greatly had his powers of earning decreased, that in 1893 a pension of 20 pounds per annum was granted him by the Royal Academy; he died, however, before drawing the first installment of it.


George Armfield was married three times. As already said, he was very young when he took his first wife; by her he had no children; by his second wife he had one daughter, and by the third, twelve children, one of whom, George, followed in his father’s footsteps as a painter of animals, more especially dogs.


The painter died at Clapham in August, 1893, and was buried at Norwood.


The following works by George Armfield have been brought under my notice:– In the possession of Mrs. Hooper, St. Margaret’s-on-Thames, “Pheasant and Fox.” In the possession of Mr. H.W.E. Dashwood, Southsea, “Fox watching Rabbits,” 40 inches by 35 inches. This biography was received from Mrs. Berl Kerrigan; who is a great granddaughter of George Armfield. The author of the biography is unknown.

Alfred Boucher is recognized by many as having “created some of the most sensual carvings of women during the final decades of the 19th century”. The abundance and diversity of his collection of works created in plaster, bronze, and marble include portraits of artists and personalities, as well as some figures of workers.
Boucher began his artistic training under Marius Ramus at Nogent-Sur-Seine before entering Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1869. There, he continued his studied under the direction of Paul Dubois and Antoine Dumont. Although he did not win the Prix de Rome, Boucher traveled independently to Rome and Florence, from where he sent his first few entries to the Salon. At his Salon debut in 1874, Boucher’s talent was immediately rewarded with a third place medal.

American Photorealist, Linda Bacon (born September 8, 1942), creates works of art that give the viewer much to see and consider; works that invite the viewer to reflect more deeply about familiar, easily recognizable objects.

Biography
Linda Bacon (1942 – ): Personal Biography

I was born in Hillsboro, Texas, and lived there, in the same house where my mother still lives, until I went to college. I attended the University of Texas in Austin and graduated with a double major in English and History, and a minor in Philosophy. After teaching 7th and 8th grade English for two years in Port Aransas, Texas, I returned to Austin and enrolled in the Graduate School of Library Science.

In 1966, the call of San Francisco’s cool summers, liberal attitudes, and great rock and blues music reached Austin, and I just loaded up my car with all my possessions and moved to California. After working for a year as the record librarian for “underground rock” station KMPX-FM, I moved to the country near Santa Cruz, where I grew organic vegetables, studied esoteric Eastern religions, and embroidered everything in sight.

My children, Starrs and Emil, were born in Marin County, California, in the early 1970’s. While raising my children, I decided that I had always wanted to be a “real” artist: one that painted on canvas instead of drawing on and embroidering clothing. After marrying Charles McBurney in 1975, I started to pursue this goal, and I had my first gallery show in 1979. The ensuing years have been spent perfecting my artistic abilities while raising our children and spending time with family and friends. When I’m not in the studio, I am often sailing or traveling with my husband, reading a good book, playing some low-key bridge, or dancing to some great blues music.

Curriculum Vitae
Linda Bacon

1942 Born, September 8, in Hillsboro, TX

1964 Bachelor of Arts Degree, University of Texas, Austin, TX

1966 Moved from Texas to California

1975 Married Charles McBurney

1996 Marin Arts Council Individual Artist Grant

1997 Winner Open Studios Pacific Coast Competition

Selected Exhibitions

2004 American Photorealism, Japan traveling exhibition: Iwate Museum of Art, Iwaki City Art Museum, Kumamoto Prefectural Museum of Art, Hakodate Museum of Art, Hokkaido. Also to Jane Vorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ

2003 Iperrealisti, Chiostro del Bramante, Rome, Italy

2002 Photorealism at the Millennium: New Generation Photorealists, Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York, NY

2001 This is America: American Photorealists, Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Arhus, Denmark

2001 Interiors Observed, Pinnacle Gallery, Savannah College of Art and Design, GA

2000 Illusions, Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York, NY

2000 The Photorealists, Center For the Arts, Vero Beach, FL

1999 Photorealism – The Next Generation, Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York, NY

1998 Realism Knows No Bounds, van de Griff Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

1998 Recent Works, Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York, NY

1997 The New Photorealists, Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York, NY

1997 Hot Time, Louis K. Meisel Gallery, NY

1997 Marin Arts Council Grantees Show, Susan Cummins Gallery, Mill Valley, CA

1994 Recent Works, Bruce R. Lewin Gallery, New York, NY

1993 New Paintings and Monotypes, Edith Caldwell Gallery, San Francisco, CA

1993 Small Wonders, I. Wolk Gallery, St. Helena, CA

1991 A Palette of Vision, Mountain View Art Center, Mountain View, CA

1991 Inaugural Group Show, Edith Caldwill Gallery, San Francisco, CA

1990 Recent Works, Capricorn Galleries, Bethesda, MD

1990 54th Annual National Mid-Year Exhibition, The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH

1990 Finalists Show for Marin Arts Council Grants, Artisans Gallery, Mill Valley, CA

1989 100 Artists – 100 Ways, Artisans Gallery, Mill Valley, CA

1988 Foliage – Three Watercolor Approaches, Creative Arts Center Gallery of the City of Sunnyvale, CA

1988 Works on Paper, William Sawyer Gallery, San Francisco, CA

1998 Ten Artists from the William Sawyer Gallery, Shasta College Gallery, Reading, CA

1998 Watercolor – Ten Points of View, Banaker Gallery, Walnut Creek, CA

1998 National Watercolor Society Invitational, Western Colorado Center for the Arts, Grand Junction, CO

1988 52nd Annual National Mid-Year Exhibition, The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH

1987 Realism, The Art Museum of Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA

1987 Works on Paper, William Sawyer Gallery, San Francisco, CA

1986 Still Life Show: Three Artists, Olive Hyde Art Gallery, Fremont, CA

1986 Rocky Mountain National Watermedia Exhibition, Golden, CO

1986 Excellence in Watercolor: West Coast Watercolor Society, Marin County Civic Center, CA

1986 Texas Watercolor Society 37th Annual Show, San Antonio, TX

1985 Works on Paper, William Sawyer Gallery, San Francisco, CA

1985 American Realism, 75 Contemporary Artists, William Sawyer Gallery, San Francisco, CA

1985 National Watercolor Society 65th Annual Exhibition, Brea, CA

1984 National Watercolor Society 64th Annual Exhibition, Brea, CA

1984 38th Annual Art Show, San Francisco Arts Commission, CA

1984 Marin County Fair Annual Juried Art Show, CA

1984 Marin Arts Council First Annual Invitational, CA

1984 The Subject is Objects: Contemporary Bay Area Still Life Paintings, Hearst Art Gallery, St. Mary’s College, Moraga, CA

1983 American Watercolor Society, 116th Annual Exhibition, Salmagundi Club, New York, NY

1982 Thirty Approaches to Realism, William Sawyer Gallery, San Francisco, CA

1982 Recent Works, Festoon Gallery, Waco, TX

1982 Liquid Light: Watercolor Beyond the Traditional, Palo Alto Cultural Center, Palo Alto, CA

1982 Featured Artist: Bond’s Alley Art Festival, Hillsboro, TX

1982 National Watermedia Biennial, Rochester, NY

1981 Recent Works – Watercolor, Allport Associates Gallery, Larkspur, CA

1981 San Francisco Women Artists Small Format Show, Crown-Zellerbach Building, San Francisco, CA

1980 27th Annual Painting Show, Richmond Art Center, Richmond, CA

1980 Gallery Show, Allport Associates Gallery, Larkspur, CA

1980 Watercolor: Three Points of View, Falkirk Community Cultural Center, San Rafael, CA

1980 Flower Show, Allport Associates Gallery, Larkspur, CA

1980 San Francisco Women Artists Large Format Show, American Institute of Architects, San Francisco, CA

1979 Small Paintings & Paperworks, Allport Associates Gallery, Larkspur, CA

1979 Northern California Arts 25th Annual Silver Jubilee Show, Sacramento, CA

1979 Works of Marin, Allport Associates Gallery, Larkspur, CA

1979 Marin County Fair Annual Juried Art Show, CA

1978 Marin County Fair Annual Juried Art Show, CA

Statement
Linda Bacon

The purpose of my art is to educate, stimulate, and entertain both myself and the viewers of my work. I paint realistic still lifes, using objects that I either own or borrow. I select objects that trigger a strong emotional or intellectual response in me: objects with color, shape, texture, design, and content that deserve hours of studying and painting. I create works that invite the viewer to reflect more deeply about familiar, easily recognizable objects, works that feature compositional complexity, fine detail, rich color, and my own expanding technical ability. A painting may deliver an overall philosophical message or emotion, yet on another level it might also investigate the relationship between certain colors, and in some corner there might be an exploration of abstraction within reality, perhaps through distorted reflections in the highly polished fender of a silvery toy car. Recently I created a series of paintings of beat-up old toys. I spent months with many wonderful borrowed toys that I would love to own, yet by thoroughly examining and painting them, I now in a very real sense do own them, and have given them and all that they evoke to everyone who views those paintings. Currently I am exploring new but similar subject matter: some is biographical, such as music memorabilia from the fifties and my uncle’s old fishing lures, and some is just nostalgic, such as old unexploded fireworks and stage magic paraphernalia.

E. Martin Hennings was born in Pennsgrove, New Jersey in 1886 and raised in Chicago. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art and the Art Institute of Chicago before enrolling in the Munich Academy in 1914 where he began to abandon his classical, realist training. With the onset of WW I, Hennings returned to Chicago where he was an instructor at the Art Institute. In 1917 he was sponsored to travel to the southwest. It was on this trip that Hennings first discovered Taos where he eventually made a permanent move in 1924. There, he banded together with two friends from Munich- Walter Ufer and Victor Higgins, to form the Taos Society of Artists. The remainder of his life was devoted to rich, painterly works that venerated his Native American subjects.

Arthur Mathews moved to the San Francisco Bay area at the age of 6. Later choosing art over following in the footsteps of his father’s architectural career, Mathews studied at the San Francisco School of Design at which he would later serve as Director from 1889-1906. Mathews continued his formal education at the Academie Julian in Paris. Following the 1906 earthquake, Mathews resigned his post at the School of Design and with his wife, opened the Mathews Furniture Shop. Mathews eschewed Impressionism and his decorative works were an amalgam of Arts and Crafts and classical Tonalist styles. Regarded as a major influence in the art community of San Francisco, Mathews died in that city in 1945.

Alexis Podchernikoff was born in Vladimir, Russia in 1886 to a family of artists. Podchernikoff immigrated to the U.S. in 1905, settling in San Francisco. Several years later, he was convinced by an art dealer to move to the Santa Barbara area where he specialized in traditional, romantic, realist landscapes of the Montecito area. Podchernikoff lived his final years in Pasadena, where he died in 1933.

Arthur Rider was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1885 where he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts. While learning his craft, Rider earned a living painting for opera companies in Chicago and London. He attended the Academies Julian and Colarossi in Paris and spent many summers painting in Spain where he met Joaquin Sorolla, a major influence in his work. Rider moved to southern California in 1924 where he exhibited extensively and was a highly sought scene painter for Hollywood studios. Rider died in Pasadena in 1975.

Orrin White was born in Hanover, Illinois in 1883. Following a brief career as an assistant professor of chemistry at Portland University, White moved to Los Angeles to work with an interior design firm. He was painting in his leisure time until 1915, when one of his works was accepted for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco and he was inspired to paint full-time. Following service in WW I, White established a successful studio in Pasadena, achieving wide renown for his decorative landscapes. Orrin White died in Pasadena in 1969.