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What difference does it make whether you're looking at a photograph or looking at a still life in front of you? You still have to look.

Chuck Close

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Chuck Close
Age: 81 †
Born: 1940
Born: July 5
Died: 2021
Died: August 19
Drawer
Graphic Artist
Painter
Photographer
Monroe
Washington
Charles Thomas Close
Charles Close
Chuck Close (1940-2021)
Charles Close (1940-2021)
Stills
Photograph
Doe
Fronts
Still
Photography
Look
Front
Looks
Difference
Make
Differences
Life
Looking
Whether
Photographer

More quotes by Chuck Close

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Of all the artists who emerged in the '80s, I think perhaps Cindy Sherman is the most important.
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Any innovation that is evident in my paintings is a direct result of something that happened in the course of making a print.
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Ease is the enemy of the artist. When things get too easy, you're in trouble.
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Inspiration is highly overrated. If you sit around and wait for the clouds to part, it's not liable to ever happen. More often than not, work is salvation.
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There are things about signing on to a process over the long term that protect you from the buffeting winds of change.
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I think most paintings are a record of the decisions that the artist made. I just perhaps make them a little clearer than some people have.
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I always thought problem solving was greatly overrated - and that the most important thing was problem creation.
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I don't believe in inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs. Some of the time you know you're cooking, and the rest of the time, you just do it.
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All the best ideas come out of the process they come out of the work itself.
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The camera is objective. When it records a face it can't make any hierarchical decisions about a nose being more important than a cheek. The camera is not aware of what it is looking at. It just gets it all down.
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All the fingerprint paintings are done without a grid.
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Art saved my life in two ways. It made me feel special, because I could do things my friends couldn't, but it also gave me a way to demonstrate to my teacher that, despite the fact that I couldn't write a paper or do math, I was paying attention.
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Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process they come out of the work itself.
Chuck Close
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I can't always reach the image in my mind... almost never, in fact... so that the abstract image I create is not quite there, but it gets to the point where I can leave it.
Chuck Close
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I knew from the age of five what I wanted to do. The one thing I could do was draw. I couldn't draw that much better than some of the other kids, but I cared more and I wanted it badly.
Chuck Close
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Once I started working with the Polaroid, I would take a shot and if that shot was good, then I'd move the model and change the lighting or whatever... slowly sneaking up on what I wanted rather than having to predetermine what it was.
Chuck Close
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I absolutely hate technology, and I'm computer illiterate, and I never use any labor-saving devices although I'm not convinced that a computer is a labor-saving device.
Chuck Close
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Most people are good at too many things. And when you say someone is focused, more often than not what you actually mean is they're very narrow.
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It doesn't upset artists to find out that artists used lenses or mirrors or other aids, but it certainly does upset the art historians.
Chuck Close
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I've always thought that problem-solving is highly overrated and that problem creation is far more interesting.
Chuck Close