Sienna Shields in 2013. They later divorced. Close was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia in 2015. He died on August 19, 2021, in Oceanside, New York, at the age of 81, from congestive heart failure. See also List of Chuck Close subjects The Portrait Now Further reading Sources External links Official website Chuck Close: Process & Collaboration References 1940 births 2021 deaths 20th-century American male artists 20th-century American painters 20th-century American printmakers American male painters 21st-century American painters American photographers Artists from Washington (state) American contemporary painters Disability in the arts Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters National Academy of Design members People from Monroe, Washington People with tetraplegia People with frontotemporal dementia Photorealist artists Pointillism American portrait painters Postmodern artists United States National Medal of Arts recipients University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty University of Washington alumni People from Bridgehampton, New York American people with disabilities Artists with disabilities People from Everett, Washington People from the East Village, Manhattan People from Long Beach, New York Yale School of Art alumni