Chuck Close, artist celebrated for his large-scale portraits that fused minimalism with photorealism – obituary

Chuck Close, who has died aged 81, was an artist whose lifelong devotion to huge, hyperrealist portraits ensured that his work was as distinctive as it was impervious to fashion. With New York in thrall to Pop, Minimalism and Conceptualism, Close alighted upon “the bankrupt form” of portraiture. His first exhibited work, the vast, monochrome Big Self-Portrait melded minimalist elements with hyperrealism to create a unique – almost Pop – image that left critics struggling to reconcile its assimilation of theoretically contradictory styles. Working from photographs, Close created full-frontal, mural-sized portraits of himself, friends and fellow artists that juxtaposed the formal elements of abstract art with the earthy engagement of photorealism.