Chuck Close Prints Process and Collaboration

May 14 – August 22, 2004
Upper Level Gallery

Chuck Close, one of America’s most important living artists, has explored the art of printmaking for more than thirty years. This exhibition, which features 133 works dating from 1972 to the present, is the first comprehensive exploration of Close’s long involvement with the varied forms and processes of printmaking. Highlighting the creative processes and technical collaborations between the artist and master printers, the exhibition demonstrates how Close has consistently challenged the accepted boundaries of the printmaking tradition.

The exhibition illustrates the range of the artist’s invention in etching, aquatint, lithography, handmade paper, direct gravure, silkscreen, traditional Japanese woodcut, and reduction linocut. As a group, these prints consitute a remarkable self-portrait of the creative drive, vision, and intellect of this influential artist.

Chuck Close Prints: Process and Collaboration was organized by Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston. The exhibition and publication have been generously underwritten by the Neuberger Berman Foundation. The exhibition was made possible, in part, by major grants from the Lannan Foundation and Jon and Mary Shirley, and by generous grants from The Eleanor and Frank Freed Foundation and Houston Endowment Inc. Financial support has also been provided by Jonathan and Marita Fairbanks, Dorene and Frank Herzog, Andrew and Gretchen McFarland, Carey Shuart and The Wortham Foundation, Inc., with additional funds from Karen and Eric Pulaski, Suzanne Slesin and Michael Steinberg, and Texas Commission on the Arts.

At MAM, the exhibition is coordinated by Peter Boswell, assistant director for programs and senior curator. In Miami, the exhibition is made possible by Lehman Brothers and Neuberger Berman, a Lehman Brothers Company. Additional support is provided by MAM’s Annual Exhibition Fund.

• gallery notes