# Chuck Close artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/chuck-close/
Profile generated: 2026-05-02T17:07:00.000Z
Quality: high confidence, strong sources

## Artist identity

- Birth date: 1940-07-05
- Death date: 2021-08-19
- Nationality: American
- Movements: Photorealism
- Common media: oil painting, acrylic painting, photography, printmaking (screenprint, etching, woodcut, linocut), drawing, collage

## About Chuck Close

Chuck Close (1940–2021) was an American painter, photographer, and printmaker whose monumental portraits rank among the most recognizable images in post-war American art. Born Charles Thomas Close in Monroe, Washington, he studied at the University of Washington, earned his MFA from Yale University, and attended the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna before establishing his career in New York. Close emerged in the late 1960s as a leading figure in Photorealism, painting mural-scale heads sourced from passport-style photographs with painstaking, near-illusionistic detail. After a spinal artery occlusion in 1988 left him largely paralyzed, he reinvented his practice—developing a modular grid system in which each cell contains an abstract mark that resolves into a recognizable face at a distance. His work is held by major institutions worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate, and the National Gallery of Art. Collectors encounter Close's output across paintings, editioned prints, photographs, and works on paper.

## Common works and media

Close's auction and appraisal landscape includes large-format oil and acrylic paintings on canvas; screenprints, etchings, linocuts, and Japanese-style woodcuts in numbered editions; large-format Polaroid photographs and daguerreotype-style works; Jacquard-woven tapestries; and mixed-media works on paper and Mylar. His subjects are almost exclusively portrait heads, both self-portraits and depictions of fellow artists, composers, and cultural figures. Prints published by Pace Editions, Pace Prints, and other documented publishers are commonly encountered in the secondary market.

## Market and appraisal context

Chuck Close's secondary-market footprint is exceptionally deep and liquid, with 691 documented auction lots spanning from December 2000 through April 2026 and 446 lots carrying realised prices. The price distribution is wide: prints and small-edition works cluster between roughly $1,500 and $12,000 (25th percentile $2,598; median $6,000; 75th percentile $12,000), while major paintings and unique works-on-paper have achieved prices into seven figures (maximum $2,807,500). Close's work appears regularly at the top-tier houses—Christie's, Sotheby's, Bonhams, Phillips—as well as at regional specialists including Rago Arts and Auction Center, Swann Auction Galleries, Hindman, and Freeman's. The 12-month lot count dipped from 56 to 39, which may reflect normal auction-cycle variation rather than softening demand. Prints and multiples (screenprints, woodcuts, linocuts, gravures, Jacquard tapestries, digital prints, offset lithographs) dominate volume; unique paintings and working drawings are rarer and command a significant premium, as seen in the $76,200 result for a working drawing for Phil at Christie's in February 2026.

## Auction-house-backed market evidence

Chuck Close's secondary-market footprint is exceptionally deep and liquid, with 691 documented auction lots spanning from December 2000 through April 2026 and 446 lots carrying realised prices. The price distribution is wide: prints and small-edition works cluster between roughly $1,500 and $12,000 (25th percentile $2,598; median $6,000; 75th percentile $12,000), while major paintings and unique works-on-paper have achieved prices into seven figures (maximum $2,807,500). Close's work appears regularly at the top-tier houses—Christie's, Sotheby's, Bonhams, Phillips—as well as at regional specialists including Rago Arts and Auction Center, Swann Auction Galleries, Hindman, and Freeman's. The 12-month lot count dipped from 56 to 39, which may reflect normal auction-cycle variation rather than softening demand. Prints and multiples (screenprints, woodcuts, linocuts, gravures, Jacquard tapestries, digital prints, offset lithographs) dominate volume; unique paintings and working drawings are rarer and command a significant premium, as seen in the $76,200 result for a working drawing for Phil at Christie's in February 2026.

### Appraisal notes

An Appraisily appraisal for a Chuck Close work would begin by establishing medium, dimensions, date, and edition details (for prints: edition size, impression number, publisher documentation from Pace Editions or Pace Prints). The auction-record pool of 446 priced lots provides strong comparable coverage for prints and multiples. For unique paintings, watercolors, and large-scale works-on-paper, comparable lots are fewer and require weighting toward sale date proximity and subject (self-portraits and named sitters such as Phil, Leslie, Alex, Brad Pitt, Willem Dafoe, and Barack Obama tend to attract stronger bidding). The appraiser would verify signature, condition (large-format prints and canvases are vulnerable to handling damage and light exposure), provenance through recognised galleries or estate channels, and exhibition or publication history. The wide price dispersion—from $10 for unsigned ephemera to $2.8M for major canvases—means that even modest-seeming differences in medium and edition can materially affect fair-market value. Currency should be confirmed, as recent lots have realised in USD, EUR, and CAD.

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### Market evidence sources

- undefined: https://appraisily.com/api/scraper-search/artists/chuck-close/seo-profile?recentLimit=24&relatedLimit=0
- undefined: https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot-chuck-close-leslie-woodcut-1986-104-c-3020e3f8bc
- undefined: https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot-chuck-close-american-1940-2021-self-portrait-tapestry-1993-75-c-4ef8ff4262
- undefined: https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot-chuck-close-1940-2021-self-portrait-sheet-39-3-8-x-29-5-8-in-1000-x-170-c-785830b5d0
- undefined: https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot-chuck-close-1940-2021-alex-image-23-x-19-3-8-in-584-x-492-mm-sheet-169-c-28896b7693
- undefined: https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot-chuck-close-american-1940-2021-2095-c-b8779c80eb
- undefined: https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot-chuck-close-self-portrait-iii-linoleum-cut-68-c-e675247e19
- undefined: https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot-chuck-close-1940-2021-willem-dafoe-1997-impression-digitale-sur-papier-signee-datee-et-numerotee-2-7-138-x-111-cm-digital-print-on-paper-signed-dated-and-numbered-2-7-78-c-39a0d77c84
- undefined: https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot-chuck-close-american-1940-2021-obama-2012-i-archival-watercolor-pigment-print-on-hanemuhle-rag-paper-edition-179-200-with-presidential-signature-created-by-chuck-close-in-collaboration-with-magnolia-edition-226-c-18f260ec37
- undefined: https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot-chuck-close-1940-2021-self-portrait-image-58-1-2-x-48-in-1486-1219-m-132-c-561634eaf2
- undefined: https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot-chuck-close-1940-2021-self-portrait-ii-image-11-3-4-x-9-in-298-x-229-m-131-c-4685bc7d50
- undefined: https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot-chuck-close-1940-2021-self-portrait-image-6-3-4-x-5-in-171-127-mm-s-130-c-cbd35fe12f
- undefined: https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot-chuck-close-1940-2021-working-drawing-for-phil-photo-collage-masking-t-124-c-198495abc4
- undefined: https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot-chuck-close-1341-c-f92cc883e6
- undefined: https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot-chuck-close-american-1940-2021-63-c-cbb9eedd83

## Appraisily data basis

This Appraisily artist page combines verified artist identity data from authority files and museum records with publicly documented auction results, sale dates, and comparable lot information when available. Sources include the Library of Congress Name Authority File, Getty ULAN, Wikidata, RKD Netherlands Institute for Art History, the Museum of Modern Art, Tate, and the artist's official website, alongside auction-house cataloguing from major international salerooms.

## Sources

- Library of Congress: https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n50061466
- RKD — Netherlands Institute for Art History: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/17302
- The Museum of Modern Art: https://www.moma.org/artists/1156
- Tate: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/chuck-close-920
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q453883
- VIAF / OCLC: https://viaf.org/viaf/114935366/
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Close
- Chuck Close / Pace Gallery: http://chuckclose.com/
- Getty Vocabulary Program: https://vocab.getty.edu/page/ulan/500031023