Chuck Close

Chuck Close, who was born on July 5, 1940, is an American painter that became famous as a photorealist by making massive-scale portraits. Photorealism is defined as "detailed visual representation, like that obtained in a photograph, in a nonphotographic medium."
Most of his early works are large scale portraits based on photographs of family and friends. Close would work from a gridded photograph and build his images by applying one stroke after another in either multi-colors or grayscale. Some of his early works include:

On December 7, 1988, Close suffered a seizure which left him paralyzed from the neck down, diagnosing him as a spinal injury collapse. Close spent months in physical therapy where he was soon able to make slight movements with his arms. Despite of his injury, Close continued to pain with a brush strapped onto his wrist with tape, creating large portraits in grid squares that are created by an assistant. His works after the injury includes: