Elton, ink jet print mounted on aluminum, 2000
Self-Portrait, 2002
Further Reading
Clay, John. ‘‘Finding the Color World: An Interview with
Chuck Close.’’ http://www.artzar.com/content/close/
index.html.
Coleman, A.D. ‘‘From Today Painting is Dead.’’Camera
35 18, no. 5, (July 1974): 34.
Dyckes, William. ‘‘The Photo as Subject: The Paintings and
Drawings of Chuck Close.’’Arts Magazine(February,
1974).
Grundberg, Andy. ‘‘Blurring the Lines—Dots?—Between
Camera and Brush.’’The New York Times, October 16,
1988: 35.
Kramer, Hilton. ‘‘Chuck Close’s Break with Photography.’’
The New York Times, April 19, 1981.
Meisel, Louis K.Photo-Realism. New York: Harry N.
Abrams, Inc., 1980.
Naef, Weston.New Trends from the Gallery of World Photo-
graphy Series. Japan: Shueisha Publishing Co., 1983.
Princeton University lectures. ‘‘Chuck Close, Eminent pain-
ter and printmaker.’’ October 9, 2003, http://www.prin
ceton.edu/WebMedia/lectures/.
Nemser, Cindy. ‘‘An Interview with Chuck Close.’’Art-
forum(January 1970): 51–55.
Solomon, Deborah. ‘‘The Persistence of the Portraitist.’’
The New York Times Magazine, Feb. 1, 1998: 24.
Storr, Robert.Chuck Close, with essays by Kirk Varnedoe
and Deborah Wye. New York: The Museum of Modern
Art, 1998.
Tully, Judd. ‘‘Interview with Chuck Close.’’ Smithsonian
Archives of American Art, 1987, http://artarchives.si.edu/
oralhist/close87.htm.
Vaizey, Marina.The Artist as Photographer. New York:
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1982.
Art Institute of Chicago in collaboration with The Friends
of Photography, text by Colin Westerbeck.Chuck Close.
Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1988.ALVIN LANGDON COBURN
British
Although mostly known today for his month-long
venture into abstract photography in 1917, Alvin
Langdon Coburn left a broader contribution to the
medium’s history. Almost a generation younger
than his mentors, Coburn seemed to straddle the
various ‘‘camps’’ that desired to realize photogra-
phy as a fine art circa 1900: Alfred Stieglitz’s
Photo-Secession in New York as well as those
associated with his distant cousin F. Holland Day
in Boston and London. Nicknamed the ‘‘Hustler,’’
Coburn forged connections to Symbolist, Aes-
thetic, and Arts and Crafts proponents. Although
Coburn seemed destined to make a name in photo-
graphy after receiving his first camera when he was
eight, his career was actually quite brief. He essen-
tially abandoned photography in 1919, devoting
the rest of his life to esoteric practices. Neverthe-
less, Coburn’s complex career was a virtual cross-
section of early-twentieth-century culture.
Born in 1882 into an old Boston family, Coburn
was a determined and privileged child from the out-
set. His father died when he was seven, leaving him
and his very ambitious mother with a substantial
inheritance. A year after exhibiting in a Boston
studio at the age of 15, he was introduced to Day,
who would serve as his guide in photography. When
he was 18, Coburn showed nine prints in Day’s
monumental exhibition,New School of American
Photography, and helped to hang it at the Royal
Photographic Society. While in London, he met a
host of important photographers, including Ed-
ward Steichen and Frederick H. Evans. After the
showing, Day and Coburn transported the work to
the Photo-Club de Paris. Once again, Day pre-
sented his prote ́ge ́ to notable figures, including
Robert Demachy and Frank Eugene, who were
masters at gum printing. Variations on this process,
which mimicked the tonal effects of impressionistic
painting, would become Coburn’s preferred photo-
graphic method.
Following further European travels, Coburn
opened a portrait studio on New York’s Fifth
Avenue in 1902, not far from what become the
headquarters of the Photo-Secession. There, he re-
established contact with Stieglitz and Steichen. He
also met the mother figure of the Photo-Secession,
Gertrude Ka ̈sebier, and worked in her portrait
studio. Over the course of Coburn’s association
with the Photo-Secession, he was granted four
issues of their journalCamera Workand twoCOBURN, ALVIN LANGDON