MTA to Install 12 Chuck Close Portraits in New 2nd Avenue Subway Station

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — When the MTA finally finishes building its new subway station at Second Avenue and 86th Street it will have some pretty snazzy decorations.

The station will be adorned by 12 mosaic and tile portraits by renowned artist and photographer Chuck Close, MTA Arts & Design announced Tuesday.

The MTA commissioned Close in 2012 to create the art installation, according to a 2012 New York Times article. Each mosaic portrait will stand 10 feet high and all 12 portraits will take up an approximate 1,000 square feet according to the Times. Portraits will be place at the 83rd and 86th street subway entrances as well as throughout the rest of the station.

"The idea is to reflect the riding population: old people, young people, people of color, Asians. I’m going to do as many as 12 separate mosaics, mainly from pictures of artists I’ve taken over the years," Close told the Times in 2012.

Close cut his teeth in the art world in the '60s when he emerged as one of the top artists practicing the Photorealism technique,according to Biography.com. Close would transform polaroid pictures into large canvas portraits capturing the look of a photograph. Close was paralyzed due to a sudden rupture of a spinal artery in 1988, but continued to create art after physical therapy, according to the biography. In 2000 Close was awarded the National Medal of Arts from former President Bill Clinton.

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The 86th Street station will be one of 16 new stations when the Second Avenue subway project is completed. The project will extend Q train service on the east side of Manhattan in Harlem, the Upper East Side, East Midtown, Gramercy Park, East Village, the Lower East Side, Chinatown and Lower Manhattan, according to the MTA's website.

[Photo: Wikimedia commons]