Description
As look around this room you’ll see a range of subjects, these include the artist’s two daughters, several self-portraits and some images of well-known people such as Bill and Hillary Clinton, Bill T. Jones, Donna Karan, and Alec Baldwin.
For his paintings, Close’s subjects are always close friends and family and he has a policy of never taking commissions. His work in photography is different and has included commissions for individual portraits and for series of celebrities; many of these have been for publications, including The New York Times Magazine and Vogue.
A painting of President Clinton is the one exception. Close first photographed Bill Clinton in 1995 at the request of New York Magazine and the portrait appeared on its cover. Other portraits sessions followed, and a friendship developed between the two men. Close eventually made a commissioned painting of Clinton, which is now in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery. The maquette for that painting is on view here.