Chuck Close, Artist ofOutsized Reality, Dies at 81

He found success with his large-scale Photorealist portraits, becoming one of the leading artists of his generation. Late in life he faced allegations of sexual harassment.

Chuck Close, who rose to prominence in the 1970s and ’80s with colossal Photorealist portraits of himself, family members and fellow artists, but who late in his career faced accusations of sexual harassment, died on Thursday in a hospital in Oceanside, N.Y. He was 81. His death was confirmed by his lawyer, John Silberman. At the end of the 1960s, a period when formalist abstraction and Pop Art dominated the contemporary scene, Mr. Close began using an airbrush and diluted black paint to create highly detailed nine-foot-tall grisaille paintings based on mug-shot-like photographs of himself and his friends.