UW – Henry Art Gallery

The Henry Art Gallery (“The Henry“) is the art museum of the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, USA. Located on the west edge of the university’s campus along 15th Avenue N.E. in the University District, it was founded in February, 1927, and was the first public art museum in the state of Washington. The original building was designed by Bebb and Gould (left in photo below).

It was expanded in 1997 to 40,000 square feet, at which time the 154-seat auditorium was added. The addition/expansion was designed by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects (right in photo above). The Henry holds a James Turrell skyspace, Light Reign, (center in photo above) which is illuminated at night by color-shifting LEDs behind frosted glass. The skyspace has a retractable roof. As is obvious from the photo above the total composition creates a cacophony of visual effects when seen as a whole, especially when you understand that this is a major pedestrian entrance to the University of Washington campus from the west (photo below).

At closer range the composition contains fewer elements and is easier to take in from the entrance plaza that is constructed over the new galleries.

It’s not obvious above but the Turrell skyspace above has been plugged into the former main entrance – not a gracious solution given the total contrast between the oval glass drum and the neo-classical brick museum; but one which works well functionally within the museum and for the opening of the skyspace roof to the sky.

The Henry’s exhibition program is largely devoted to contemporary art and the history of photography. The collection includes over 25,000 objects with strong holdings in photography, both historical and contemporary, due to the partial gift and purchase of the Joseph and Elaine Monsen collection. In 1982, the Henry inherited a sizable collection from the University of Washington’s former Costume and Textile Study Center as well.

I went to The Henry to see a show of the work of Chuck Close, an artist who mixes a wide variety of ways of looking at the world and making art. He is an American painter and artist and photographer who achieved fame as a photorealist, through his massive-scale portraits. Close often paints abstract portraits of himself and others, which hang in collections internationally. Although a catastrophic spinal artery collapse in 1988 left him severely paralyzed, he has continued to paint and produce work that remains sought after by museums and collectors. Close also creates photo portraits using a very large format camera such as this self-portrait rendered from a photo he took.

Most of his early works are very large portraits based on photographs of family and friends, often other artists. Chuck suffers from prosopagnosia (face blindness) and has suggested that this condition is what first inspired him to do portraits.

In many cases he transcribes a grid over the portrait, as with Lisa –

and then creates a painting of, in effect, small landscapes within the grid that resolve into something resembling the original photograph.

It’s not clear what drives the language of each of the small grids; but it may simply be spontaneous reactions to the colors and textures from the photograph.

Close creates wall-size tapestry portraits, in which each image is composed of thousands of combinations of woven colored thread. They are produced in collaboration with Donald Farnsworth.  Although many are translated from black-and-white daguerreotypes, all of the tapestries use multiple colors of thread. No printing is involved in their creation; colors and values appear to the viewer based on combinations of more than 17,800 colored warp (vertical) and weft (horizontal) threads.

Throughout his career, Chuck Close has expanded his contribution to portraiture through the mastery of such varied drawing and painting techniques as ink, graphite, pastel, watercolor, conté crayon, finger painting, and stamp-pad ink on paper; printmaking techniques, such as Mezzotint, etching, woodcuts, linocuts, and silkscreens; as well as handmade paper collage, Polaroid photographs, Daguerreotypes, and Jacquard tapestries.

While the large format Polaroid photos create a large format impact, I found them the least interesting part of the show. They don’t seem to contain the same level of exploration as some of the other techniques. Here’s Chrysanthemum in three panels.

As a well-known artist, Close made friends with other well-known people and asked them to sit for a photo portrait, here Hillary and Bill.

In many of these cases, the photo was enough.

In some situations, he clearly ‘messed around’ to see what would happen, as in this multiple exposure print of John.

In others the type of treatment follows the personality – and, in this case, the work – of the person. Kara Walker works in cut silhouettes of black and white so it was a pretty obvious approach to treat her portrait that way.

I have to admit I’m not sure why he did Bill T Jones in mug shot format, I and II.

As with many artists, Chuck Close used himself as a model fairly often, in this case in an exploration of etching in grids.

Here’s a closer look at what’s going on inside some of the grid squares.

Here’s his personal take on mug shots, in this case done with a large format Polaroid. This 5-view self-portrait is about six feet long. (Note that in the two diagonal poses he couldn’t help look at the camera.)

And finally, the old man himself (he’s 77).

Not the easiest show to take in, but a great opportunity to be challenged about how we see and represent each other.