Book cover for Chuck Close: Red, Yellow, and Blue: The Last Paintings by Barbara Knappmeyer and Carter Ratcliff

Chuck Close: Red, Yellow, and Blue

The Last Paintings

2024 Released
88 Pages
1-2 Hours
Ebook Unavailable
Audiobook Unavailable
Hardback Unavailable
Pace GalleryISBN 9781948701709

The final works of the photorealist pioneer, made with a palette of only three colors

Since the 1970s, Chuck Close (1940-2021) has been known for his innovative approach to conceptual portraiture, systematically transposing his subjects' likenesses from photographs into gridded paintings. Published on the occasion of Pace Gallery's first exhibition of the artist's work since his death in 2021, Red, Yellow, and Blue spotlights Close's final body of paintings, which employ a palette of only three colors. Layering transparent glazes of red, yellow and blue paint, Close created an effect of abstract likeness entirely different from that of his previous work. Alongside studio photography and images of Close's mosaic works, this volume features a previously unpublished 2018 interview between Close and Cindy Sherman--originally commissioned by the Brooklyn Rail--as well as a new critical essay by Carter Ratcliff, which considers Close's final works in depth. An additional essay by Barbara Knappmeyer examines the artist's portraits in the context of facial recognition technology.

Carter Ratcliff

Carter Ratcliff is a poet who writes about art. He first published his poetry in The World and other magazines in the orbit of the St. Mark's Poetry Project, in downtown Manhattan. In recent years poems of his have appeared in The Sienese Shredder, The Mississippi Review, Cimarron Review, Hudson River Art, Vanitas, Cover Magazine, among other journals; and in INFILTRATION: AN ANTHOLOGY OF INNOVATIVE POETRY FROM THE HUDSON VALLEY (Station Hill, 2015); The KGB Bar Book of Poems (Harper Perennial, 2000); and Poetry After 9/11: An Anthology of New York Poets (Melville House, 2001). His books include Fever Coast (Kulchur Press, 1973); Give Me Tomorrow (Vehicle Press, 1983); ARRIVEDERCI, MODERNISMO (Libellum Press, 2004); and TEQUILA MOCKINGBIRD (Station Hill Press, 2015). A Contributing Editor of Art in America, Ratcliff has published art criticism in leading journals in the United States and Europe, as well as catalogs published by the Museum of Modern Art; El Museo del Barrio; the Guggenheim Museum; the Royal Academy, London; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and other institutions. Among his books on art are The Fate of a Gesture: Jackson Pollock and Postwar American Art (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996); Out of the Box: The Reinvention of Art 1965-1975 (Allworth Press, 2000); and Andy Warhol: Portraits (Phaidon Press, 2006). Since 2003, Ratcliff has lived with his wife, Phyllis Derfner, in the Hudson River Valley.

Why Readwise Books?

Readwise Books is an ebook & audiobook platform that automatically logs how much you and your friends read, making it fun and easy to read more. Learn more →