Chuck Close’s “Frank”: Everyman as Art
The late author Douglas Adams said that art is holding a mirror up to the Universe – although he then pointed out that there was not a mirror big enough, since the Universe was infinite in size. So what’s an artist to do? American artist Chuck Close brings that mirror down to size by making his subject huge. In “Frank” (1969), a grey-toned acrylic painting of a black-and-white photograph, an everyday man becomes a monumental work of art. Close shows that the everyman is just as valid a subject for art than classical themes or the upper class.
It has only been very recently that everyday people and scenes were considered acceptable subjects for art like paintings. Just look at the tragedy of Vincent Van Gogh’s life. Although he lived in the late 1800s, he chose to portray everyday people going about their everyday business. As a consequence, his work was labelled “ugly” and ignored. Even after artists like Van Gogh have become almost deified by the art world, there are still snobbish holdovers that look down their noses at art focused on the everyday and commonplace. Here, Frank gets to look down his nose at everyone, including the art critics.
There is nothing really that really distinguishes Frank from any other person. Sure, he wears glasses, has a beard and an unruly head of hair, but other than that, he is basically just like any other person. The subjects of art usually focused on religious themes; rulers or people rich enough to afford their own portraits; great historical events like battles or shipwrecks; or something of outstanding beauty, like sweeping pastoral landscapes or sunsets. Frank, though, contains none of these elements. He is not even dressed unusually or standing against an interesting background. All the monumental canvas shows is Frank’s head against a while background looking down emotionlessly at his viewers.
It can be quite intimidating to look up at this huge, almost god-like face staring down at you. Here is an everyday guy getting immortalized on canvas by Chuck Close himself. The viewer may be tempted to think, “What’s this guy ever done to deserve a huge painting of him? Why, he’s no different than me.”
That may be the point. Yes, that is a huge painting of a regular guy taking up nearly a whole wall at the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts. Chuck Close found the faces of common people suitable enough to pour his creative energies into. Perhaps someone can find something uncommon about any common person.
Frank’s face, neck and collar take up most of the canvas, leaving only a thin white frame around him. It looks as if he is the only being in the Universe. In one sense, we are all the only beings in our personal Universes. We are walking Universes that look out in confusion or impassiveness at all of the other Universes walking by.
This monumental approach to portraying a subject is nothing new in the history of art, although the subject, Frank, is new because he is just the average guy. For example, the celebrated animal painter George Stubbs painted a life-size portrait of the racehorse Whistlejacket about 1762. The chestnut thoroughbred stallion is rearing against a completely empty background. It is as if Whistlejacket the horse is the only important thing in the Universe, or that the Universe just happens to be shaped like Whistlejacket the horse. In “Frank” Close seems to be giving the Whistlejacket treatment not to another horse but to a regular guy.
It could be argued that horses are more appropriate subjects for monumental art pieces than non-famous people. Many people prefer looking at animals than people. The vivid Whistlejacket is certainly much more attractive a mammal than the dull grey Frank. Whistlejacket was also a winning racehorse, although one has to be a die-hard fan of racing history in order to find out what races Whistlejacket won. Maybe people in Stubbs’ time recognized Whistlejacket by sight, but people today just see a great big chestnut horse. The canvas does not let the viewer know what makes Whistlejacket different from any other horse. In the same way, Close does not place on canvas anything that marks Frank from anyone else, except that he wore glasses.
Many portraits show their subjects in the background of their home or business. They often wear work clothes or their best clothes or something that gives away their social status and profession. Close does not give this treatment to Frank. He wears a normal pair of black-rimmed glasses for the times and a nondescript shirt and collar. Viewers can see the reflections of windows in Frank’s glasses. However, even this reflection does not give away who Frank is or what Frank does for a living.
The Minneapolis Institute for the Arts’ website describes “Frank” as “unsettling”. This is an accurate description. “Frank” is not unsettling in the way Pablo Picasso’s massive black and white painting “Guernica” is unsettling. In Picasso’s masterpiece, animals and people are stretched out in agony under a falling bomb. The viewer “gets” the painting very quickly. Although not many people in the 21st century know much about the Spanish Civil War, they can look at “Guernica” and right away see the suffering from man’s inhumanity to man. “Frank” is a difficult painting for a viewer to “get.” It just seems like a great big head comes out of nowhere. The viewer does not recognize the head (unless he or she is already familiar with Close’s work) and does see why Close spent so much time and energy on the painting. Not “getting it” can be a very unsettling experience for a museum patron or a college student taking an art class.
Another unsettling point about “Frank” is that it is a painting and not a huge blown-up photograph. At first glance, it certainly looks like a huge black-and-white photograph. It may take a while for a viewer to realize that this is a painting of a photograph. The painting is done photo-realistically to the point where it does look like a photo.
Why not just use the photo? This is an unsettling question for a viewer to answer. Photography has often been criticized as being somehow a lesser art than painting. Although photography is as an art form is given more respect today (especially with the advent of Photoshop), it was not in 1969. In order for Frank to get respect in the art world, he had to be painted, not photographed. Close then painted his portrait to look as much like Frank’s photograph as possible.
In this age of Photoshop, it may be hard for a modern viewer to trust what he or she sees in a photograph. Not so long ago, photos were considered truthful. Cameras could not place subjectivity into their images. They could only faithfully reproduce whatever it was they were aimed at. It was hard to disprove photographic evidence back in 1969. Painters could take liberties with their subjects. Van Gogh and Picasso both distorted their portraits in order to tell an emotional story. Stubbs had to paint Whistlejacket to the satisfaction of the stallion’s wealthy owner. Perhaps Whistlejacket was not so magnificent in real life. We will never know, because there are no photographs of Whistlejacket (photography would not come along until decades after Whistlejacket’s death.)
Close seemed to want to reproduce Frank’s photo exactly as Frank’s photo and nothing else. His painting is a mirror to the photo, although his mirror magnifies Frank’s photo to colossal proportions. By painting a photo, Close was telling the truth about Frank as best as he could. Perhaps he also knew that people would take the painting of a photo far more seriously than just a photo or a more conventional painting portrait.
Since Frank is an everyday person, he is very much like the viewer. The viewer is also an everyday person. Most people are uncomfortable with too much praise (and if they are comfortable with constantly being praised, this often means that they are mentally ill.) Having a huge portrait of yourself in a museum would be mortifying for most people. The most unsettling thing about “Frank” is that, there for the grace of Chuck Close, that could be the viewer’s colossal head up there against the wall getting scrutinized rather than Frank.
If an artist finds Frank a good enough subject for art, then why not everyone else as good enough subjects of art? It can be a disturbing thought. Many people may state that they think art is putting a mirror up to the Universe, but the mirrors they want put up are funhouse mirrors that somehow distort the true reflection in the mirror. Many people would prefer images that are prettier, that are funnier or that are scarier, depending on their individual tastes. Not many people would prefer to just look at a thing as it is, let alone pay for it and hang it up on their walls.
It took a lot of personal honesty, technical skill and a thick skin about the critical reaction for Close to produce “Frank” for the world. He must have had to spend a lot of effort to ignore wondering what the critics would say and just concentrate on working on the painting. “Frank” is a great work of art because it does what art is supposed to do – put a mirror up to the Universe. Frank is just one item in the Universe (although Frank may think otherwise) and the mirror Close put on him is just as legitimate a subject for great art as racehorses and towns getting mercilessly bombed.
Works Cited
Minneapolis Institute of the Arts. “Frank.” CollectionsArtsMIA.org. https://collections.artsmia.org/index.php?page=detail&id=1721 (accessed November 2, 2014).
