Emily/Fingerprint

- 1986

Chuck Close

$25,500

Rare edition

Limited availability

Special technique

Blue Chip Artist

Museum Exhibited

TECHNIQUE

Direct gravure

SIZE

51 x 41″

Chuck Close

Born: 1940, Monroe, Washington

Died: 2021, Oceanside, New York

Chuck Close

Value Indicators

Recognition

Rebelling against pure abstraction when portraiture was considered dead, Close turned intimate snapshots of peers like Philip Glass and Alex Katz into iconic works of modern printmaking. Awarded the National Medal of Arts, he has been exhibited at MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tate, and Centre Pompidou.

Intent

Close playfully merges our two most personal markers of human identity: the portrait photograph and the fingerprint. He uses this biological signature thousands of times over to bring Emily's face to life.

Composition

Breaking free of rigid grid lines, Close varied the pressure of his inked fingertips on Mylar before transferring the image to an acid-bitten copper plate, building a lush landscape of velvety blacks and luminous skin tones.

Ceres Take

Chuck Close has reached $4.8M at auction. This work stands over four feet tall and the last of his acclaimed Fingerprint series.

PARENT TECHNIQUE

Etching

Etching is a form of printmaking that involves creating designs on a copper plate, using an acid-resistant material like wax or resin. The artist scratches through this material to expose the metal underneath. The plate is then submerged in an acid bath, which bites into the exposed areas, creating grooves....