Robert Bechtle

American painter Robert Bechtle (b. 1932) is a native of San Francisco. He earned his fine arts degrees from the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, and taught for over 30 years at San Francisco State. He is one of the originators of the American Photorealist style which gained prominence in the 1960s. While other artists focused on abstraction and expressionistic works, Bechtle and his contemporaries like Ralph Goings and Richard McLean forged another direction by creating realistic works that capture another vision of America's post-war experience.