Throughout his career, Close painted numerous selfportraits, always from photos. This simple but strict  limitation allowed him to concentrate fully on the transformation of the photo into an artwork, using a range of different techniques and materials. He always divided an image with a grid and ‘translated’ each square, one by one, onto a larger format. His prints, which he worked on for several months, were just as important to him as his paintings. Keith is a key early work in which he left the grid visible for the first time. In later works the grid became increasingly apparent and Close increasingly abstracted his portraits. [text 2024]