artist statement
The Enlightenment project of the eighteenth century marked a growing interest in science and a more objective recording of the wonders of the natural world. Artists grappled with the problems of imitating nature in all its complexity, refining skills, searching for better ways to record the truth of their visual reality. Artists like John Constable (1776-1837) were motivated by these concerns to paint the truth of nature, as perceived, not to compose or invent but to maintain the honesty of simple observation.
To aid the artist in the process of drawing a popular device was in use that acted as a mechanical aid to the eye. The Camera Obscura1 has existed in one form or another since antiquity. Its name is Latin, meaning “dark chamber” which relates to its earliest form as a darkened room that projected a small pinhole of light onto a whitened wall. By the 16th century the device was reduced to a portable format where an image could be projected onto a piece of ground glass or paper.
The ramifications of this invention are quite profound, the device enabled the operator to achieve an accurate drawing without the need for traditional drawing skills. This fact, in a way, was a challenge to the artistic conventions of drawing, looking and the relationship of painting to the object. The camera obscura did not rely on the rules of draftsmanship to translate what is seen onto a two-dimensional surface, you simply traced it. The growing use of mechanical aids to the eye devalued the mystery of the artist’s hand2, a simple lens and mirror could inscribe a real image onto the surface of a piece of paper, without the need for the artist to stand between the object and its representation. The invention of photography took this one step further when the image could be chemically fixed to a surface, an artist’s hand was not needed to trace the image, an artist’s eye was no longer needed to see the object, an eye had been replaced with a lens.
Since the development of photography, painting has lost its importance as the prime source of iconic-analogical images. What I mean by this, is that before the invention of photography, painting and drawing were the only sources of recording a likeness of an object, people, places and events. Painting achieves this by using imitation to achieve a relationship of resemblance, photography on the other hand, uses the chemical recording of the action of light on a photo sensitized surface. Painting requires a high level of skill and time on the part of the maker while photography requires limited skill on the part of the operator to produce an accurate image instantly. The popularity of early portrait photography is an example of the widespread acceptance of the photographic image over a painted portrait.
Both painting and photography share an iconic and analogical value in achieving a resemblance, painting however, cannot make us believe in the real existence of what is shown in the image. The photograph in comparison has a higher “truth value” due to the fact that the image is a material trace of light of an actual event in time. This gives the photograph an indexical quality
“To the extent that the index is affected by the object, it necessarily has some quality in common with it and it is in respect to these qualities that it refers to the object. It therefore implies a kind of icon, even though it is an icon of a particular kind. It is not the mere resemblance it has to the object, even in this respect, that makes it into a sign, but its being truly changed by the object,”3
The indexical nature of photography resides in its ability to be affected by the object. The indexical value of the photograph lies in the recording of an actual event of fact. With popular and portrait photography the iconic-analogical aspect of the photo becomes the most important characteristic. The “truth value” underpinned by the indexical nature of the photograph is assumed to authenticate the meaning of the event or fact, that is people assume that the photograph is objective. This is not the function of an index, an index in linguistic terms is an expression whose reference on an occasion is dependent upon the context. The photograph has more than just a resemblance to the object, it has been “truly changed by it”. This physical trace of an actual event in time underpins the popular notion that the camera never lies.
“Here the word “Photo” stands for a complex of implicit theories and practices of the reproduction of reality. Most people use certain standardized means to orient themselves in their relations with one another and with the world. Some of these means are held to be relatively untrustworthy, others to be highly accurate. In the twentieth century, photos are widely recognized as particular sure reproductions. The field of the imagination is covered by literature, painting and the performing arts; that of factuality, by photography.”4
It should be noted that the factuality of the photograph has come under increasing question since the advent of digital imaging technology. Most people understand that advertising images are heavily modified and not necessarily a factual account of the object represented. This uncertainty has been extended to press photography where newspapers have been found guilty of manufacturing images that purport to be an account of an actual event by digitally modifying unrelated images. The popular understanding of the “truth value” of a photograph still holds true but the notion is increasingly a tenuous one.
The process of painting a realist image requires the implementation of conceptual skills to render a sense of perspective and solidity of the forms depicted. The process produces an identity between the subject (artist) and object. The painting is an intentional act, the artist creates a representation of an object through the successful realization and interpretation of personal perceptual sensation, memory and motor skill. Photography has made the subject anonymous, it creates an identity between the object and image without recourse to the artist as subject, the artist is not required to realize the image. The photograph stands in a casual and not intentional relationship to the object. The image is an actual record of how the object looked, it does not rely on the artist to intentionally construct the representation. The photographer will compose and light the objects to create a representation that communicates a concept or aspect of the world that is personally important in the same way that an artist composes a painting to communicate an idea or understanding of the world. The difference is the intervention of the artist as subject, who intentionally constructs the representation into its finished form and the camera, which casually records the image through the use of photomechanical technology. The photographs of Robert Mapplethorp clearly reflect the artists’ ideas about the male figure and aspects of Homoerotocism. This is achieved by composing, framing and lighting actual objects in such a way to visually communicate the intent or idea. Robert Mapplethorp as subject, is rendered anonymous by the fact that he does not stand between the object and the object represented, the camera creates the identity between the object and the image.
The photograph’s ability to record a fragment of time with incredible detail has many advantages when used as a primary model for painting. The photograph as an actual record of the real - its indexical qualities - provides the artist with visual information that would be lost in the process of painting and drawing from life. While painting no longer fills the function of the prime source of iconic-analogical imagery, it is free to explore the possibilities of using the photograph as the model to be imitated. This is one of the functions that painting has traditionally done well, achieve an iconic-analogical resemblance through the use of imitation.
Gerhard Richter has been using the photograph as a primary source since the late 50’s. His motivation was to take advantage of the visual information content of the photograph as the basis for his paintings. It is common practice for artists to refer to photomechanical source material as either an aid to memory or visual record of facts.
Gerhard Richter, Zwei Kerzen (Two Candles), 1974, Oil on canvas (150 x 100 cm). Courtesy of Gerhard Richter
In 1962 the photograph took on greater importance for Richter when the photograph became the visual model or Maquette. Richter chose photographs that were neutral in style, in the sense that the image was not taken by a professional photographer for purposes of artistic expression or use as an advertising image. His preferences was for amateur snapshots, postcards and press clippings, such images tend to be aesthetically impartial, and are generally records of events in time.
For Richter the photograph gave him the ability to look at an image without thinking about the art historical conventions of painting and drawing. In general amateur images are free of artistic style, composition is usually restricted to centering the object in the viewfinder. What I mean by this, is the mechanical and automated features of the camera usually take precedence over any artistic intention on the part of the operator. The amateur photographer relies on the automatic features of the camera to make most of the decisions needed to record an image of the event. This is not to say that no amateur photographer uses artistic judgement, some do, but in general, the purpose of the snapshot is based on the desire to record a particular fact. This contrasts strongly with the process of drawing and painting a visual record, which does rely on conceptual and artistic judgements on behalf of the artist. To overcome the unreliability of human visual perception the artist must employ conceptual devices to ensure a measure of accuracy. Subject, style, composition, technical skill, judgement and an understanding of perspective are all necessary ingredients needed to make an image.
“…by painting from photographs, I was relieved of the need to choose or construct a subject. I had to choose the photographs, of course; but I could do that in a way that avoided any commitment to the subject, by using motifs which had very little image to them and which were anachronistic. My appropriation of photographs, my policy of copying them without alteration and without translating them into a modern form (as Warhol and others do), represented a principle avoidance of the subject. This principle has been maintained, with few exceptions (doors, windows, shadows, all of which I dislike), to this day. ”5
Richter is free to take advantage of the indexical properties of the photograph, as a record of an event in time; Richter can use the image to make his art. This raises the question of what happens when a photograph becomes the subject of a painting. A tension is set up between the indexicality of the photographic image and the conceptual/imaginative possibilities of the painting process; you are confronting one representational process with another. Photography has been held responsible for the demise of representational painting. Richter, by painting a photograph, strips the photograph of its indexical properties turning the debate full circle, the photograph has become subject to the imitative iconic nature of painting, the very thing that brought about painting’s demise as the prime source of iconic-analogical images. That is, images that bear a likeness to the object.
Gerhard Richter, Onkel Rudi (Uncle Rudi), 1965/85. Oil on canvas (87 x 50 cm). Stredocesca Galerie, Prague
Richter’s work “Uncle Rudi” is a transformation of one representation system to another. Richter is not trying to claim that painting is necessarily better than photography in achieving resemblance, the painting simply features the ability of oil paint to mimic the look of a photograph. The blurred image confronts you with the illusion of realism, after all that’s what it is, an illusion. You see a blurred image on canvas, only to realize on closer inspection that the material nature of paint cannot be blurred. The painting consists of clear applications of paint and brush marks, the blur is the illusion. The graphic qualities and indexical nature of photography have been stripped away in the painting. The process of abstraction deconstructs the associations that photography has with stereotyping. The image, originally indexical, is now iconic, the stereotype of what could be a Nazi Officer has been reduced to a type, a man laughing6. Richter’s work is an ongoing experiment with the possibilities of colliding the indexical qualities of photography with the creative possibilities of paint.
A photograph is more than just the sum of its indexical qualities, it has materiality. What I mean, is the material nature of the grain that makes up the image as a whole. Like the raster lines of a television and the pixels of a digital image, the photograph is built on a mosaic of silver nitrate crystals. These images are electronically and mechanically constructed, which can be paralleled, in a way, with the physical construction of a painting. The artist, Chuck Close understands the material nature of the photographic image and it is to his work that we turn to understand how the materiality of the photomechanical device can be utilized in the production of painting.
Chuck Close graduated from Yale University School in 1966 in the milieu of minimalism and abstract expressionism. Artists such as Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman and Willem de Kooning stressed the importance of the expressive possibilities of materials and the mark, which could be utilized to reflect something about the artist’s mind and body when used in a non-objective or non-descriptive way. Close was interested in the work of Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock but was not fully convinced that his own work should be grounded in expressive ideas of the 50’s and 60’s. The large format canvases of the action painters and the marks made by Pollock, influenced Close to explore scale and the mark-making potential of paint, not for its expressiveness - the ability of the mark to communicate something about the artist - but for its pattern-making potential.
“…. I was aware of an all-overness that I associate with Pollock and find particularly American. Once you have seen a few inches of a Pollock, there are no surprises. There’ll be the same marks or skeinlike ribbons of paint all over…. I wanted to approach my own painting that way-creating a pattern or image while the activity remains the same, like knitting or crocheting. What I like about the lack of surprise is that no area is more important than another. The image is built with the same kind of mark all over, so it’s mechanical.”7
The idea that an image can be constructed out of a field of regular marks can be traced back to the work of Georges Seurat (1859-91).
Georges Seurat, Seated Boy with Straw Hat, 1859-1891. Black conte crayon (9 1/2 x 12 3/8 in.). Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven.
Close was impressed by the ability of Seurat to construct an image with a pattern of regular marks that did not interfere with the totality of the image. The marks can be compared to the photosensitive grain of film that constructs a photograph, each independent unit building the image as a whole. When the image is enlarged, the materiality of the grain and object represented can be clearly seen. Each grain of emulsion is an independent unit with a unique shape that does not bear a direct descriptive relationship to the object-in the sense of a line representing the shape of a form. In the work of Seurat, the material and physical aspects of the mark making are clearly present, the regular pattern of dots are independent units that are not expressive gestures of the artists hand.
“While you are aware of the making, the artist’s hand has almost disappeared. Seurat’s drawings are almost apparitions. You’re not quite sure where the edge is. Seurat drew figures that didn’t look handmade, at least not in any expressionist sense, just using the texture of the paper and growing with it. His images in conte crayon are so well integrated with their own physical substance that viewers notice the materialized, real imprecision of a contour simultaneously with its idealized, unreal preciseness; they come to see that even a crispy drawn edge is never materially flat and straight but consists instead of irregular marks moving in and out of the texture or weave of the paper. Where Seurat’s image is relatively light, its linear marks seem like fibers embedded in the paper; where his image is dark, its pigment seems like the papers grain or cross-weave. You see images and constitutive mark, both projective figure and material ground, with the disquieting realization that these dichotomous elements remain separate and distinct only in theory, not in practice, not in real-time experience.”8
Close understands the material nature of Seurat’s work and the material nature of the photograph. In the case of photography the consistency of image quality and the complex patterns that form the image parallel Close’s desire to make every square inch of a picture in the same way.
Close chose to represent the figure in his early work with the piece “Big Nude” (1967) representing his first large scale painting that explored both the human form and the application of the photograph as the primary model in his work. Close used the large format idea of the action painters, producing a work that was a monumental 21 feet in length. The photograph provided Close with enough information to enlarge the human form on a two dimensional surface while maintaining a high level of detail. Close has a desire to be visually objective and understands that the photograph is the most accurate and objective record of what is seen. It has the advantage of quickly producing an analogical resemblance of the real, without recourse to the inaccurate and time-consuming processes of painting and drawing source documents.
Chuck Close, Phil, 1969. Synthetic polymer on canvas (274.3 x 213.4 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
The painting “Phil” represents a shift in Close’s work from the nude to an increasing interest in the human head. The work is large and made with an airbrush, a piece of equipment that enabled Close to avoid touching the canvas while making work that was free of the expressive possibility of the brushstroke. The effect of the pigment sprayed onto the surface of the canvas in tiny dots is similar to the grain of a photograph. The evenness of the airbrush mimics the optical properties of the photograph, using pigment instead of chemical dye to describe form with areas of tone.
The photograph’s ability to represent what seems to be an accurate account of the real has a lot to do with the way that light has been recorded interacting with various objects. The photographic process can record the interaction of light with objects in a way that is consistent with our own visual system. An accurate record of the intensity of light on a given object will give the viewer information about tone, color, texture, spatial relationships and volume of an object. Realist painters have traditionally taken advantage of the action of light to achieve an illusion of the real.
To achieve a consistent graduation of tone, Close employs the use of a grid to allow a smooth transition of tonal values in small steps. Each unit of tone progressively builds the picture in the same way as individual grains of film. This device has led to the grid taking on a greater importance in the artist’s work. The fracture of the image into tonal segments within a grid unifies the image by breaking up the object into component parts of equal size. The grid is itself a pattern of squares that Close has utilized as the foundational element to base his desire to make every square inch of the painting in the same way. Over time the grid has opened up the possibility for Close to experiment with building the tonal relationship of each square unit out of a series of colored marks that form an individual pattern in each segment of the grid.
Chuck Close, Roy 11, 1994. Oil on canvas (102 x 84 in.). Pace Wildenstein, New York.
The working procedure for each painting is a quite methodical procedure. The starting point is a large format Polaroid print overlaid with a grid. The painting is commenced in the top left hand corner and worked through to the bottom right hand corner. Each square on the grid is a self-contained whole that relates to a corresponding point on the source photograph. Each square contains an initial tonal and color approximation with additional strokes of color added as lines or circles to modify the initial estimation. Although Close has shifted from airbrush to oil paint the brushmarks are restricted to simple shapes that make up a series of patterns that bear no relationship to the object they collectively represent.
The photograph as the initial model has enabled Close to transform one system of representation to another. The highly accurate Polaroid print has been reprocessed through the filter of oil paint and the grid into a low resolution, fractured and more material image. At a close viewing distance the illusion of analogical resemblance is brought into question as the image gives way to the abstract nature of the grid. Like images on a television, computer or cinema screen, the reality is virtual, behind glass, composed of grids and pixels. The work of Chuck Close shares this virtuality, the image floats between the representation of the object and the materiality of the grid that forms the objects component parts. The photograph is a filter that stands between the object and the artist’s perceptual response to the object. Close can remain emotionally distance, free to explore the mark and the materiality of painting. The need to maintain a sense of emotional distance allows Close to approach the representation of the figure in a more objective way. The photographic image is fixed in time, Close can concentrate on the process of translating the photographic image into paint without the physical presence of the subject introducing new variables, such as movement and emotion. The emotional state of both the artist and subjects alters the way the artist perceives the sitter in any given moment. This approach differs from Gerhard Richter who relies on the photograph as a source of imagery that is free of art historical conventions.
Viewing photographs and electronic images distances us from the personal experience of the actual event. An artist concerned with realism can use this sense of distance to liberate personal experience from an objective recording of the real. Given the indexical properties of the camera, the photograph can be used as the reality check against which, the artist can compare personal visual objectivity.
The photograph, as index, records events in small fragments of time, the viewfinder frames the world within a small rectangle. Looking at the world through a photomechanical device is considerably different from the stereopsis of visual perception. The camera offers us a new way of seeing the world. An artist who has taken advantage of the framing potential of the camera is William Delafield Cook, who has been using photography as the primary model in his work since 1967.
In 1967 Cook embarked on a series of drawings based on photographs of household furniture. His motivation was to combine his lifelong love of photography with his desire to paint and draw within the conventions of 19th century artistic practice. To accomplish this task, Cook needed to refine his drawing and painting skills to a level that would enable him to mimic a photographic resemblance of the real.
Cook wanted to capture something of the ordinary subject matter that featured in the early work of photographer William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-78). Subject matter, such as buildings, landscapes and still life that features in so many early photographs is partly an aesthetic decision of the photographer and partly the limitation of the technology of the time. Film and camera speed was very slow in the 19th century. The mechanical shutter had not yet been developed, the photographer had to expose the film by removing the lens cap for a minute or so. The long exposure times restricted the type of subject matter to objects that did not move and people who could sit very still.
William Delafield Cook, A Roomful of Chairs, 1969. Charcoal and conte crayon on paper on canvas (116.8 x 142.2 cm). National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
This drawing was based on an old glass negative that was found by Cook in an archive. The origin and purpose for which the negative was used has been lost in time but seems to be reminiscent of images used in furniture catalogues. Cook has edited the image to isolate the furniture from references to their original surroundings. The drawing features the same high contrast that features in early black and white photographs, while the composition of the work draws on the idea of framing an image through a viewfinder. Parts of the furniture have been cut off giving you the sense that there is a lot more to the room than what is depicted in the drawing. The chairs are highly rendered and very dark contrasting strongly against the large areas of white paper. The image looks photographic but is in fact a drawing from a glass negative not a film positive.
William Delafield Cook, Some Plants, 1971. Acrylic on canvas (125 x 125 cm). Collection: Govett Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, New Zealand
Cooks work utilizes the illusion of iconic-analogous resemblance, which can be traced back to his use of photographic devices as a child. He has grown up with the idea of framing the world through a viewfinder, recording images and looking at the results of his compositions through the medium of slide projection.
The work “Some Plants” reflects Cook’s idea of photographically framing an image. The plants are shown in close-up, isolated from their surrounding in the same manner as the objects in the work “A Roomful of Chairs”. The space is shallow, as happens when viewing an object at close range through a lens. The attention to detail reflects the level of visual information recorded by a photomechanical device while bordering on the obsessive behavior on the part of the artist
Cook sees himself as a traditional realist. He is part of a long tradition of artists who are interested in depicting the visual world around them, perfecting their skills in the pursuit of greater resemblance.
William Delafield Cook, Pumpkin, 1976. Charcoal and conte crayon on paper on canvas (60.8 x 70.8 cm). Collection: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
Willem Kalf, Still life with the drinking horn of the St Sebastian Archers’ Guild, lobster and glasses, 1653. Oil on canvas (86.4 x 102.2 cm). National Gallery, London.
The work “Pumpkin” is very much in the style of seventeenth century still life painting, which featured arrangements of common household objects, highly crafted in their realism. The work of Willem Kalf features a careful arrangement of objects and dramatic lighting effects. The darkness of the background and high level of realism adds to a sense of the strangeness of the commonplace. The objects selected would not have been considered important subjects in themselves, the Dutch artists of the time were able to demonstrate that the subject of a painting is not the most important element of the painting9. Cook has chosen to isolate an equally commonplace object, which is presented in a strong horizontal format. The darkness of the background and intensity of the light adds a sense of mystery to an ordinary pumpkin. In a letter, Cook describes his motivation:
“To isolate fragments of reality and to present them reduced to their essence, seeking an image which will endure and which will carry with it some of the strangeness and intensity, which I myself have felt when experiencing them in nature. The subjects are not in themselves important and are selected simply as a means of conveying or expressing a view of the physical world, which transcends the obvious, the particular and leads towards the metaphysical.”10
The image is similar in granular texture to early Fox Talbot Calotypes, a feature that Cook seeks to replicate in his work. Early photographic prints did not have the fine grain emulsions in use today. Early film emulsion comprised of course silver nitrate crystals that were distributed in an uneven layer on the photographic plate. The images were less sharp, edges broken up by the crystals on the photosensitive surface. Unlike Chuck Close, who utilizes a grid to fracture the surface, Cook relies on the grain of paper and charcoal to represent the blurred edges and graininess of early photographs.
Cook uses the photograph as filter to edit, select and isolate objects. This allows Cook the freedom to focus his attention on simplified images, rendering tonal relationships in his painstaking analytical approach to representing form. As a compositional tool the photograph can be used to experiment with different possibilities. Cook will, at times, arrange objects in his studio, light them and photograph them from various angles to arrive at the best composition. The photograph is the initial model in Cook’s work, providing the detailed information needed to produce a highly rendered realist work.
William Henry Fox Talbot, The Haystack, 1844, Plate X from The Pencil of Nature. Salted-paper print from calotype negative.
“ One advantage of the discovery of The Photographic Art will be that it will enable us to introduce into our pictures a multitude of minute details which add to the truth and reality of the representation, but which no artist would take the trouble to copy faithfully from nature. Contenting himself with general effect, he would probably deem it beneath his genius to copy every accident of light and shade: nor could he do so indeed, without disproportionate expenditure of time and trouble, which might be otherwise much better employed. Nevertheless, it is well to have the means at our disposal of introducing these minutiae without any additional trouble, for they will sometimes be found to give an air of variety beyond expectation to the scene represented.” Henry Fox Talbot11
The belief that photography would lead to the demise of representational painting has its basis in the accuracy of the photomechanical image. Cook has taken up the challenge, recording a high level of detail in his work, transforming the photograph as initial model into something more iconic. Chuck Close, in a similar way, has based his art in transforming the material nature and realism of the photograph into paintings that are more virtual in their illusion of the real. The materiality of the film grain has been transformed into the materiality of paint. Gerhard Richter uses the photograph to avoid the subject, the photograph allows him to view an image without thinking about art historical conventions of painting and drawing. Photography has come full circle, once the technology that took over painting’s role as the prime source of iconic-analogical resemblance’s, it is now subjected to digital imaging, which has destabilized the certainty of the “truth value” of the photographic record. A photograph can now be manipulated as easily as painting and drawing. With a less certain future as an accurate account of the real, artists have appropriated the photograph as an object in relation to which paint can be used to achieve an iconic-analogical resemblance.
Bibliography
Books and Periodicals
Antoine, Jean-Phillippe, Koch, Gertrude and Lang, Luc, Gerhard Richter, Editions Dis Voir, 1995
Blair, Dike, “Chuck Close” Flash Art, March/April 96, n187 p111
Buchloh, Benjamin, “H.D., Benjamin H.D. Buchloh”, October, Winter 1996, p61-82
Gardner, Paul, “Making the Impossible Possible”, Art News, May 92, v91 p94-99
Gombrich, E.H., The Story of Art, Phaidon, 1995
Gookin, Kirby, “Chuck Close”, Artforum, March 94, v32 p84-85
Gregg, Gail, “The Making of a Retrospective”, Art News, April 98, n4 p142-147
Hall, Stuart, Representation: Cultural Representation and Signifying Practices, Sage Publications, 1997
Hart, Deborah, William Delafield Cook, Craftsman House, 1998
Morgan, Robert, C., “Chuck Close”, Flash Art, May/June 98, n200 p95
Obrist, Hans-Ulrich, Gerhard Richter 100 Pictures, Cantz Verlag, 1996
Richter, Gerhard, The Daily Practice of Painting: Writings 1962-1993, Thames & Hudson, 1998
Shiff, Richard, “Realism of Low resolution”, Apollo, Nov 96, v144 p3-8
Shiff, Richard, “ALLOVER YOU” Artforum, April 98, v36 n8 p90-138
Steiner, Wendy, “Postmodern Portraits” Art Journal, Fall 87, v46 p173-177
Ratcliff, Carter, “Collapsing Hierarchies: Photography and Contemporary Art”, Aperture, Fall 91, n125 p36-41
Internet Articles
Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, http://marketing.britannica.com.au/welcome/ [Accessed September 8 1999]
Fox Talbot Museum of Photography, “William Henry Fox Talbot”, http://www.r-cube.co.uk/fox-talbot/history.html [Accessed September 8 1999]
Leggat, Robert, “A History of Photography: William Henry Fox Talbot”, http://www.kbnet.co.uk/rleggat/photo/history/talbot.htm [Accessed September 8 1999]
PaceWildenstein Gallery, “Chuck Close, Recent Paintings”, http://www.pacewildenstein.com/close/recent1.html [Accessed September 8 1999]