Self-Portrait

Chuck Close's prints have a direct relationship to his oil portraits; they are based on a grid system. In some, he has employed mezzotint or lithography (using an airbrush or fingers and thumb) to define his forms within a grid. In this spit-bite aquatint, the areas within the grid resemble dabs of paint and result from Close's use of ferric acid, applied with a brush. The length of time the acid was allowed to bite the plate was carefully controlled to produce a particular tonality.