Chuck Close is an American painter, printmaker, and photographer known for his large, photorealistic portraits. He has said he concrentrates on portraits as a way to combat prosopagnosia, which is an inability to recognize faces.
Close attended graduate school at Yale, with classmates including Brice Marden and Richard Serra, before settling in New York. His photographs are often used as the basis for other work, including his paintings. He grids the photographs and the meticulously paints each section, using various techniques.