- Long-forgotten Rembrandt portraits to be auctioned at Christie’s The Washington Post
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- Two Rembrandts Discovered in U.K. Collection, Heidi Horten Jewelry Sale Sets Record, and More: Morning Links for May 15, 2023 ARTnews
- Two Rare Rembrandt Portraits Will Hit the Block at Christie’s in July—199 Years After They Were First Sold by the Auction House artnet News
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Tag Archives: portraits
Barack and Michelle Obama make first joint return to the White House for unveiling of official portraits
The history-making portraits of the Obamas stand in contrast to those of other US presidents and their spouses hung on the White House walls, depicting the first Black President and first lady through the perspectives of contemporary artists working outside many of the conventions of traditional political portraiture.
President Obama’s image was painted by Robert McCurdy and Michelle Obama’s portrait was painted by Sharon Sprung.
McCurdy told the White House Historical Association in an interview that his process focused on working off of a photograph of the former President. The photorealistic image of the former President, dressed in a black suit with a gray tie, is painted against a minimal white backdrop — a signature of McCurdy’s artworks. McCurdy said his paintings take at least a year to complete.
The former first lady’s portrait was painted by Sprung, who describes her work as “contemporary realism.” The image depicts Michelle Obama in a blue dress, seated on a sofa in the Red Room of the White House. The artwork was painted from photographs taken in different locations on the White House’s State Floor.
The long-awaited return of a White House tradition
Wednesday’s ceremony in the East Room marked a rare occasion for a celebration among two presidential administrations, where President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden convened a who’s who of administration officials past and present — from the unique vantage point of having served in both.
The pieces, which will hang inside the White House for decades to come, are the first official portraits added to the White House Collection since then-President Obama held a bipartisan unveiling ceremony for George W. Bush and Laura Bush in 2012.
Biden used the unveiling ceremony to reflect on the Obamas’ accomplishments in the White House, saying that the former first couple “made history.”
“You both generated hope for millions of people who were left behind for so long — and it matters. You both did it with such grace and such class. You dreamed big and secured lasting wins for the American people, helping lift their burden with a blessing of hope,” he continued. “It’s so underestimated … just having hope. This is the gift of the Obama presidency to the country and to history.”
The former President subsequently led a standing ovation for Biden, saying in the East Room, “Thanks to your decency and thanks to your strength — maybe most of all thanks to your faith in democracy and the American people — the country’s better off than when you took office. And we should all be deeply grateful for that.”
Stewart McLaurin, the president of the WHHA, told CNN that the Covid-19 pandemic played a factor in the timing of the unveiling. The WHHA, a nonprofit organization, facilitates and funds the creation of the portraits.
“Covid impacted us two-and-a-half years ago, and I do think it’s important for these (portraits) to be revealed at a time when the public does have access to the White House and they can be seen,” McLaurin said.
While there’s no hard-and-fast rule for when a White House portrait ought to be unveiled, ceremonies have often been hosted by a former president’s immediate successor. And when in office, President Donald Trump never held a ceremony for the Obama portraits.
‘An evolution of art’
Details about the pieces being unveiled on Wednesday were a tightly held secret, with artists and art movers signing confidentiality agreements to keep things under wraps before the big day.
But the Obamas have often used art as a tool to express their tastes, so it should come as no surprise that their White House portraits are doing the same.
McCurdy’s depiction of the former President is minimalist, eschewing the conventional props typically associated with a presidential portrait, like a desk or a bookcase, for an entirely blank background.
The former President said during the unveiling that he liked that McCurdy “paints people the way they are, for better or worse.”
“He captures every wrinkle on your face, every crease in your shirt. You’ll note that he refused to hide any of my gray hairs, refused my request to make my ears smaller. He also talked me out of wearing a tan suit, by the way,” Obama quipped. “His work is so precise that at first glance it looks like a photograph.”
While past presidents attain a form of “mythical status” after leaving office, Obama said he hoped future generations would look at the portraits and “get a better, honest sense of who Michelle and I were.”
“And I hope they leave with a better understanding that if we could make it here, maybe they can too. They can do remarkable things, too,” he continued.
Sprung’s interpretation shows the former first lady appearing to take a brief moment to get comfortable inside one of the the most formal rooms in the White House. Unlike her predecessors’ portraits, Michelle Obama is wearing a strapless gown in her portrait — perhaps a marker of the country’s evolving style.
In her portrait, the former first lady is wearing a custom Jason Wu Collection gown, a person familiar with the details told CNN. Wu is a full-circle choice of designer for Obama, and he designed both of her inaugural gowns. Obama’s choice of Wu back then essentially launched his career as a globally recognized fashion designer.
Michelle Obama said during the ceremony that though she “never could have imagined” being first lady would be part of her story, she recognized that “traditions like this matter, not just for those of us who hold these positions, but for everyone participating in and watching our democracy.”
“Too often in this country, people feel like they have to look a certain way or act a certain way to fit in, that they have to make a lot of money or come from a certain group or class or faith in order to matter. But what we’re looking at today — a portrait of a biracial kid with an unusual name and the daughter of a water pump operator and a stay-at-home mom — what we are seeing is a reminder that there is a place for everyone in this country,” the former first lady said.
“That is what this country is about. It’s not about blood or pedigree or wealth. It’s a place where everyone should have a fair shot,” she continued.
Ahead of Wednesday’s reveal, McLaurin called the Obama portraits “an evolution of art.”
“We’re now heading towards the first third of the 21st century. And I think in the mind’s eye of most Americans, we see presidential portraits as these very traditional, 19th-century-looking-and-feeling portraits. But art and taste in art evolves and changes,” he continued.
While living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the Obamas opted to highlight several contemporary and modern artists.
A Robert Rauschenberg painting replaced a portrait of a Roosevelt in the family dining room. Mark Rothko and Josef Albers works were installed. And Michelle Obama brought in work from Alma Thomas — the first Black female artist in the White House Collection.
Since leaving the presidency, the Obamas have staked some of their post-White House careers in taste-making — producing podcasts and award-winning films, as well as curating playlists and book lists each year.
For their portraits unveiled in 2018 at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery (which are not to be confused with new official White House portraits being unveiled this week), the Obamas chose two Black artists with unique perspectives on African-American portraiture.
Amy Sherald, who painted the first lady’s Smithsonian portrait, challenges conventions about race by depicting her figures’ skin in shades of gray. Kehinde Wiley, who painted the former President, re-imagines Old Master paintings with Black subjects.
Traditionally, the two latest sets of presidential portraits are placed in the Cross Hall of the White House — though Trump chose to move portraits of Bush and Clinton into the Old Family Dining Room — which was essentially used as a storage room during his White House — after feuding with both families.
Biden moved the Bush portraits and Clinton portraits back to the Cross Hall, but with a new Obama portrait, Clinton may have to be relocated soon.
Wednesday’s ceremony at the White House
The Obamas’ return to the White House marked a rare moment for the current and past administrations to converge and look back on a presidential legacy in the same room where President Obama awarded then-Vice President Biden a surprise Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2017.
Unlike the 2012 Bush portraits unveiling, Wednesday’s event mostly hosted attendees from the same political party — with some attendees having connections to both administrations.
The Obamas were joined by family, friends, former Cabinet members and top staffers from the administration during the unveiling, acknowledging former staff in the room as well as staff from the White House residence.
Marian Robinson, the mother of Michelle Obama who lived in the White House residence during their presidency, attended the ceremony.
Other attendees included Obama’s former chief of staff (and the current US Ambassador to Japan) Rahm Emanuel, former senior adviser David Axelrod, former Treasury Secretaries Jack Lew and Timothy Geithner, former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, former Attorney General Eric Holder, former Education Secretary Arne Duncan, former Director of the US Office of Management and Budget Shaun Donovan, and former White House press secretary Josh Earnest.
Former President Obama has visited the White House since Biden took office, but Wednesday’s event marked Michelle Obama’s first time back in the building since the Trumps arrived in January 2017.
While former President Obama and President Biden like to play up their relationship in public, there are limits to their friendship, officials have said.
They speak occasionally, but they are not in daily or weekly contact, people familiar with the matter have said.
After two terms working in Obama’s shadow, Biden has, at moments, differentiated himself from his predecessor. Officials have said there is also a degree of competition between the two men.
Their history, while one of partnership, has also been colored by various slights, real or perceived, that still linger.
Obama declined to endorse Biden over other Democrats in the 2020 primary, a step both men insisted was necessary to allow a true contest within the party. Four years earlier, Obama had viewed Hillary Clinton as his Democratic successor instead of Biden, who decided not to run as he grappled with his son’s death.
Trump portraits are up next
The White House Historical Association is in the “beginning stages” of the portrait processes for former President Trump and former first lady Melania Trump, McLaurin said.
“There’s focus on specific artists that will likely be doing their portraits,” McLaurin added.
A source familiar with the situation told CNN that chatter about the portraits started in the last six months at Mar-a-Lago — Trump’s Florida residence — and that the former president recently sat for photographs. However, it’s not clear whether Trump has posed for the White House portrait artist or for photographs specifically for the portraits.
On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to say whether Biden would extend an invitation to Trump should his portrait be completed during the Biden administration.
While the official White House portraits are typically funded by the WHHA, the other set of portraits being created for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery are being underwritten by Trump’s political donors.
Trump’s political action committee donated $650,000 to the Smithsonian Institution in July to help underwrite the portraits of the Trumps, according to Linda St. Thomas, chief spokesperson for the Smithsonian.
The donation from Trump’s Save America leadership PAC marks the first time that funds have come from a political action committee since the institution began raising private funds for presidential portraits — a practice that started with the portraits associated with former President George H. W. Bush, St. Thomas said.
St. Thomas said another private donation of $100,000 also is helping to pay costs associated with the portraits. The funds, totaling $750,000, will go to artists’ fees, shipping, framing, installation and events.
CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated to clarify where President Donald Trump had the portraits of Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton moved during his time in the White House.
CNN’s Kevin Liptak, Kate Bennett, Fredreka Schouten, Gabby Orr, Betsy Klein and Jeff Zeleny contributed to this report.
Intimate portraits of LGBTQ youths living deep in the Amazon rainforest
While eating dinner at a restaurant in Careiro, a small town deep in the Amazon rainforest, Daniel Jack Lyons was unexpectedly approached by a local drag performer, Wendell.
Two days earlier, the American photographer had met with young community leaders in the hope that some might participate in a new project exploring the lives of marginalized youths in the remote Brazilian region. Word had quickly spread.
“He came up to me and said: ‘You’re the photographer, I’m a drag queen and you’re photographing me on Thursday,'” Lyons recalled in a phone interview.
The pair met up, and the resulting portrait — Wendell staring defiantly at the camera with a lit matchstick in his mouth — went on to become the standout image in Lyons’ dreamy new coming-of-age series, “Like a River.” But as both a photographer and a trained anthropologist, Lyons appears more interested in the human stories behind his pictures.
“Wendell does drag performances, but he’s also caring for his mother’s small business selling churrasco (grilled meat) at night in the market,” he said. “She’s quite ill, and he’s taken over. So, it’s a very sensitive thing: He doesn’t want to do drag and (have any resulting discrimination) negatively affect the business, which is what they’re surviving on.
“So as a way of overcompensating, he has become this ‘mother’ to all the non-binary, trans and queer kids in the town,” Lyons added, recounting how Wendell opened his home to struggling teens and has helped transgender youths access hormone therapy in the nearest city, Manaus.
About half of the subjects in Lyons’ new book identify as trans, non-binary or “queer in some way,” said the photographer. Credit: Like a River 2022/Loose Joints
Basing himself in Careiro and the nearby Tupana River for up to eight weeks at a time, Lyons went on to photograph dozens more young people for the series, which is currently on display at the Rencontres d’Arles photo festival in France. About half of the subjects in his accompanying book are trans, non-binary or “queer in some way,” said the photographer, who himself identifies as queer.
Their stories contain tales of turbulent gender transitions and family friction. One person Lyons spoke to for the project had been disowned by their wife and parents, and separated from their son, after coming out as trans. The photos were also taken against the backdrop of social stigmas in a country where homophobic hate crimes are on the rise and LGBTQ rights appear increasingly under threat (Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who once told Playboy magazine that he would be “incapable of loving a homosexual son,” has voiced disapproval of the country’s same-sex marriage laws).
Yet, the overriding spirit of Lyons’ images is one of resilience.
“There was a struggle among everybody I worked with, for sure,” he said. “But it’s almost like discrimination is just understood in a tacit way. It’s the undercurrent, it’s there, but as I was becoming friends with people, there was a lot of positive discussion.
“There was a (sense of) perseverance — celebrating the fact that they can walk around this town and not care what people think.”
Intersectional identities
Borrowing its title from a Brazilian poem of the same name, “Like A River” depicts not only the region’s LGBTQ communities, but other groups “living on the margins,” as Lyons puts it. His intimate images capture teens involved in arts and music subcultures, as well as indigenous youths with complex “intersectional identities.”
The photographer also turned his lens on young land activists, with environmental threats serving as a recurring concern among his subjects. He said that fear of illegal mining and deforestation has noticeably grown in Careiro since he began the project in 2019.
Lyons also turned his lens on the region’s environment, which he says is increasingly under threat. Credit: Like a River 2022/Loose Joints
“There’s obviously a lot of discrimination based on being queer, but I think the bigger threat for people is that Bolsonaro has created this wild west in the Amazon. There is a lot of fear that loggers and illegal miners can come into a community,” he added, referring to recent reports of miners attacking indigenous villages in the hunt for gold and other resources.
Lyons, who has previously produced series on marginalized youths in Mozambique and Ukraine, treats portraiture as an act of collaboration — and his subjects as friends.
The photographer focuses on building relationships before picking up his camera. He usually won’t capture people the day he meets them — and he gives collaborators power over where and how the shoots take place, including what they wear and how they pose.
“It’s not traditional photojournalism where you swoop in, take pictures and swoop out,” explained Lyons, who said he is still in touch with many of the people featured in “Like a River.”
“It was much more than that. I wanted to focus on engaging with people and really cherishing those intimate moments they shared with me.”
“Like a River” is on show at the Rencontres d’Arles photo festival until Aug. 28, 2022. A book of the series, published by Loose Joints, is available now.
Forty and fabulous: Kate Middleton marks milestone birthday with new portraits fit for a future queen – Celebrity
Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, turned 40 on Sunday, hitting the milestone as her profile soars alongside her husband, Prince William, the future king.
Kensington Palace released three new stunning photographs of the future queen to mark her milestone birthday. The portraits, taken by fashion photographer Paolo Roversi, show her wearing different Alexander McQueen dresses.
BBC reported they will go on display this year in the three areas — Berkshire, St Andrews and Anglesey — where Kate has lived.
They will then be housed in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery.
In the black and white photograph, Kate wears an ethereal white gown along with pearl drop earrings that once belonged to Princess Diana, according to Vogue.
An off-the-shoulder red Alexander McQueen has been paired with earrings from the collection of Queen Elizabeth.
Her highness
Since marrying into Britain’s most famous family in 2011, Kate has emerged to become one of the most popular royals — and a figure central to its future.
Her image as a safe pair of hands, at a tricky time for the monarchy, was boosted at a televised Christmas carol concert in December. She delighted fans with her musical prowess by accompanying the British singer-songwriter Tom Walker on piano for his poignant song ‘For those who can’t be here’.
Kate rehearsed in secret for the surprise performance at Westminster Abbey, which was dedicated to everyone who served their communities during the coronavirus pandemic. “She was absolutely fabulous — she smashed it. What a talented, kind, warm-hearted, lovely person,” Walker said, describing her as “very chilled, very nice” to everyone.
Both Kate and William, who turns 40 in June, have been much more visible public figures since the start of the global health crisis. The couple have held video meetings with frontline healthcare workers battling the outbreak, which has claimed some 150,000 lives in Britain since early 2020.
They have also given insights into life with their three children in lockdown — albeit in a sprawling country pile on a royal estate.
As restrictions lifted, they have been seen at official engagements, from the glitzy world premiere of the new James Bond film to meeting world leaders at the G7 and UN climate change conferences. Kate has also pushed her own initiatives such as championing early years education and, with William, promoting mental health and protecting the environment.
Polite resilience
The couple’s former private secretary Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton told The Times newspaper that part of Kate’s appeal was her polite, down-to-earth and unflustered nature.
“She takes time to talk to people,” he said, likening her to Queen Elizabeth II’s own mother, who was a symbol of British resilience during World War II.
“She is tough. She has got that Queen Mother feel in her, so that when things need doing, she is there to do them.”
A lot of the focus on Kate since she and William started dating as students in Scotland was on her middle-class background.
Despite attending one of Britain’s top private schools, much was made of how she would fit in to the arcane world of royalty with its traditions and conventions. Early comparisons were inevitably drawn with William’s own mother, Princess Diana, who struggled with the forensic media scrutiny after marrying Prince Charles in 1981.
But Kate has in public at least given the impression of being eager to embrace royal duties, and unlike her sister-in-law, Meghan, given little away.
In the British media, she has enjoyed favourable coverage, particularly since Meghan and her husband Prince Harry quit royal life and moved to the United States last year.
Up to the task?
Some attribute the difference in public attitudes towards Kate and Meghan to a very British reaction to emotional candour in a country known for stiff upper lip reserve.
Certainly, Meghan’s criticism of a cherished British institution, including accusing it of racism, did not help.
Nonetheless, Kate — known for carefully curated social media posts of family life — has encountered some brickbats, not least for her immaculate appearance.
The novelist Hilary Mantel even accused her of resembling a “shop-window mannequin with no personality of her own”.
But she is clearly seen as a dependable figure in royal circles at a crucial time.
The royal family has also been rocked by a US civil claim for sexual assault against the Queen’s second son, Prince Andrew, and his links to the convicted sex offenders Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Harry is also poised to publish his memoirs this year amid fears of fresh revelations.
With the Queen now 95 and stepping back from public duties on health grounds, William’s father Charles and his second wife, Camilla, have become more prominent.
But with Charles now 73, his reign, when it starts, is already being seen as a transition to William and Kate’s more up-to-date, empathetic, Instagrammable version of a venerable institution.
Royal author Phil Dampier said with Harry in self-exile, Andrew in the shadows, and other senior royals ageing, “the whole future rests with William and Kate”.
“Fortunately they look up to the task and I’m sure her best is yet to come,” he told the Daily Mail.
Feast Your Eyes on The Annual Family Portraits Hubble Took of Our Solar System Giants
Every year, Hubble takes a little time to turn its electronic eyes closer to home.
Rather than staring into vast distances across space and time, it focuses on our very own Solar System; specifically, the heavyweight planets that lurk out past the asteroid belt – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
That’s not because they’re pretty; or rather, not just because they’re pretty. The observations are conducted every year as part of the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program.
Although other instruments have been capable of higher resolution images, such as the retired Cassini probe at Saturn, or Juno currently orbiting Jupiter, the outer ice giants have been neglected when it comes to dedicated probes – and Hubble’s longevity gives it an edge.
The space telescope, whose mission was recently extended until 2026, has been in low-Earth orbit since 1990, showing us the cosmos in breathtaking detail. And, under the OPAL program, it can show us the long-term evolution and dynamics of the planets in the outer Solar System.
Hubble’s images of the outer planets are among the most high-resolution possible, except for those taken by probes actually visiting the planets in close proximity.
The pics of Uranus and Neptune may seem blurry compared to the space telescope’s images of distant nebulae and galaxies, but that’s because of their relative sizes in the sky. Andromeda is several times larger than the full Moon. Neptune and Uranus are pinpricks in the sky.
Through OPAL, we have learnt that Jupiter’s Red Spot is changing shape and color, and images its spectacular and powerful auroras. Saturn’s auroras have also been imaged by Hubble, revealing radio wave activity and a polar auroral asymmetry indicative of a lopsided magnetic field.
Hubble’s images have allowed scientists to track a dark storm on Neptune that has been behaving very oddly as it roams across the cold skies, and revealed clouds on Uranus, which is surrounded by its rings and moons.
This year’s OPAL images, taken in September and October, reveal some fascinating new details about our giant planets.
Hubble’s September 2021 image of Jupiter. (NASA/ESA/A. Simon/Goddard Space Flight Center/M.H. Wong/UC Berkeley/OPAL team)
Jupiter, imaged by Hubble on 4 September, is turbulent with storms, with counter-rotating bands of clouds blown around the planet by powerful winds, striped vanilla and caramel. This year, the planet is wearing a peculiar belt, with unusual orange and red bands wrapped around its equator, which is usually white or pale brown.
Above the equator, several red spots appear. These are new storms, cyclonic vortices that are likely temporary, unlike the semi-permanent Red Spot and Red Spot Jr just below it, the latter of which is currently brown and has been joined by several smaller, pale storms.
Saturn was imaged by the space telescope on 12 September, and the images show the ringed planet with its northern hemisphere in early autumn. Saturn is tilted, just like Earth, so as it orbits the Sun, it undergoes seasonal changes as the solar exposure to the hemisphere changes. However, a year on Saturn is 29 Earth years, making its seasons each around 7.5 years long.
As the temperatures on the hemispheres change, so too do the clouds. Saturn’s stripes are changing color, and look significantly different from last year, when the northern hemisphere was at the tail end of summer, and the year before.
Uranus, imaged on 25 October, is having springtime in the northern hemisphere. Because it is farther from the Sun, its orbital period (year) is even longer than Saturn’s, with a single season on Uranus taking a whopping 21 Earth years to pass.
In Hubble’s image, the cloud cover over Uranus’ north pole, called the polar hood, shines brightly. Scientists aren’t sure why this happens, but believe it could be excitation from the Sun’s ultraviolet radiation interacting with something in the planet’s atmosphere. Why that might cause brightness could be down to a number of things, such as a change in the opacity of atmospheric methane.
One thing that remains the same over the past few years of Hubble observations is a pronounced boundary at 43 degrees of latitude. Scientists think there could be a jetstream there keeping that sharp demarcation.
Finally, Neptune was imaged on 7 September. There, the southern hemisphere is thought to be experiencing spring – but seasons there last over 40 Earth years. It’s been autumn and spring on Neptune for over 20 years, and it will likely continue to be for around 20 more.
The new images reveal that Neptune’s peculiar dark storm is still hanging around. You can see it on the top left of the planet. If you look carefully, you will also see a dark circle around the south pole. That’s been present since at least August 1989, when Voyager 2 flew past on its journey to parts unknown – into deep space, far beyond the Solar System.
Cover image credit: NASA, ESA, A. Simon/Goddard Space Flight Center, M.H. Wong/UC Berkeley and the OPAL team.
Chuck Close, painter of outsized photorealist portraits, dies aged 81 | Chuck Close
Chuck Close, known for creating huge, highly detailed, photorealist paintings of himself and fellow artists, has died aged 81.
The painter rose to fame throughout the 1970s and 80s, depicting peers including Philip Glass and Cindy Sherman. But his career was marred by numerous allegations of sexual harassment made in 2017 but dating back to 2005.
Born Charles Thomas Close in Monroe, Washington, in 1940, the artist was raised by his pianist mother and plumber father, who died when Chuck was 11. He struggled at school with dyslexia but, as a keen painter from an early age, he went on to complete a master of fine arts programme at Yale in 1964 alongside other artists who would find fame, including Richard Serra and Jennifer Bartlett.
Close made his first self-portrait in 1968. It remains one of his best known – the artist stares at the camera with unkempt hair, thick-rimmed glasses and with a lit cigarette wedged between his lips. Titled Big Self-Portrait, it lived up to its name at almost nine feet tall. Impossible to distinguish from a photograph, it portrayed Close as a rebellious figure, which was apt as he was going against the grain of the abstract and pop art of the era. The sheer scale of his work also set him apart from his photorealist peers – critics often said that to see them in person was a visceral experience.
Close added colour to his repertoire in the 70s, depicting his friend, the painter Mark Greenwold, in astonishing detail for the 1979 work Mark. A year later he had his first major retrospective at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Of his practice, Close once said: “Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.”
In 1988, Close’s career looked to be over after he was paralysed from the neck down following a collapsed spinal artery. After months of rehabilitation, however, he learned how to paint again, reinventing his style while using brushes strapped to his wrist. He is said to have told friends: “I’ll spit on the canvas if I have to.” His later work continued to receive acclaim with portrait subjects including Lou Reed and Bill Clinton.
In 2017, Close was accused of sexually inappropriate verbal behaviour by several women who had been posing for paintings alone in his studio. Close said he was “truly sorry” if he made the women feel uncomfortable and accepted he had spoken with a “dirty mouth” while assessing their bodies. But he did not accept the charge of harassment. A planned exhibition at Washington’s National Gallery of Art in 2018 was cancelled as a result.
Close was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2013, and then dementia in 2015. His doctor, Thomas M Wisniewski, told the New York Times that this condition could have been responsible for the actions he was accused of: “[Close] was very disinhibited and did inappropriate things, which were part of his underlying medical condition. Frontotemporal dementia affects executive function. It’s like a patient having a lobotomy – it destroys that part of the brain that governs behaviour and inhibits base instincts.”
Close died at a hospital in Oceanside, New York, from congestive heart failure. He is survived by his daughters, Georgia and Maggie, and four grandchildren.