Wil Hylton has a detailed and very intimate profile of Chuck Close in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine as he enters a strange—and troubling to his family—new phase of his life and career. Mis-diagnosed with Alzheimer’s recently, Close labors under numerous physical and now neurological limitations.
None of that has stopped his work from evolving into a ‘late style.’
After 30 years of splitting his time between the tony enclaves of Manhattan and Bridgehampton, he has recently set about leaving much of his old life behind: filing for divorce from his wife, Leslie, after 43 years of marriage, disappearing for the winter to live virtually alone in a new apartment on Miami Beach and retreating from his summer friends to the crowded isolation of Long Beach. Even when Close ventures into the city for a gallery opening these days, he will often turn up in some outlandish costume, in fabrics printed with giant starfish and sunflowers, with lipstick smeared across his face and billowing, extravagant scarves.
Over the past year, I have been stopping off to see Close in various homes and apartments up and down the Eastern Seaboard, trying to get a handle on the changes in his life and their connection to his work.
The Mysterious Metamorphosis of Chuck Close (The New York Times)
