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He received his BFA and MFA from Yale University School of Art and Architecture and has received numerous grants and fellowships such as Fulbright Grant to study in Vienna, Austria, the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and was elected member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, New York in 1992 and awarded the National Medal of Arts, Washington, D.C. in 2000. He lives and works in New York.

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Initially working as a Photorealist, Close paints large-scale portraits. His work is based on the use of a grid as an underlying basis for the representation of an image. Close is also a master printmaker who has pushed the boundaries of traditional printmaking, creating screenprints with over 200 colors. While a painting can occupy Close for many months, it is not unusual for one print to take upward of two years to complete.

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Close's work can be found in collections around the world including, the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Tate Gallery, London, England; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.