The first comprehensive survey of American artist Chuck Close's (b. 1940) groundbreaking innovations in the field of printmaking is on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art through April 18, 2004. "Chuck Close Prints: Process and Collaboration" features approximately 100 prints, working proofs, and objects. Together they document the creative and often highly experimental ways in which Close has reinterpreted the signature subject of his paintings and photographs—monumentally scaled images of the human head—into the artistic language of various print mediums.

The works on view date from his first print, Keith/Mezzotint, made in 1972 and believed to be the largest mezzotint ever produced, to Emma, a 113-color Japanese-style woodblock print, completed in 2002. Encompassing the full scope of Close's printing activities, the exhibition demonstrates how the artist—in collaboration with his master printers—has consistently challenged the traditional boundaries of such diverse printing techniques as aquatint, etching, lithography, silkscreen, linoleum cut, and Japanese and European woodcut. Visitors also have an opportunity to visualize the artist's creative processes through the display of progressive and state proofs for a number of his prints, as well as actual woodblocks, etching plates, and other print matrices.

The exhibition was organized by Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston. The exhibition and publication have been generously underwritten by the Neuberger Berman Foundation. Additional support was made possible by the Lannan Foundation, Jon and Mary Shirley, The Eleanor and Frank Freed Foundation and Houston Endowment Inc., Jonathan and Marita Fairbanks, Dorene and Frank Herzog, Andrew and Gretchen McFarland, Carey Shuart, The Wortham Foundation, Inc., Karen and Eric Pulaski, Suzanne Slesin and Michael Steinberg, and Texas Commission on the Arts.

In New York, the exhibition is made possible in part by Jane and Robert Carroll.

Philippe de Montebello, director of the Metropolitan stated: "For the past thirty years Chuck Close has been producing prints that astonish us with their technical virtuosity, daring extremes of scale, and hallucinatory presence. While the opportunity to study the step-by-step evolution of his printed works goes far to demystify the artist's working methods, it only enhances our admiration for his extraordinary achievements in this medium."