Chuck Close’s Big Self Portrait (1967-1968), which is featured in the Lifelike exhibition, also recently made a sojourn (in postcard form) to Nepal and India. His presence incited a few double-takes and queries from the locals — Who is this smoking guy? Do you worship him?
Close said of his portraits in 1970, “I am not trying to make facsimiles of photographs. Neither am I interested in the icon of the head as a total image.” Here Chuck inhabits new places, sometimes a familiar face, sometimes just a man with the mountains.
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