NEW WORK

SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

ROBERT BECHTLE : NEW WORK

SEPTEMBER 10 - DECEMBER 1, 1991

Born in San Francisco in 1932, Robert Bechtle studied at the California College of Arts and

Crafts in Oakland, and since 1968 has taught painting at San Francisco State University. In

the late sixties and early seventies, when Bechtle became well-known nationally, his work

was usually seen together with that of Richard Estes, Chuck Close , and Malcolm Morley,

among others, as representing a new style called Photo Realism or New Realism. Although

the relationship of Bechtle's work to photography was evident and much remarked upon,

critical discussion generally centered on its subject matter-ordinary views of suburban

streets and houses, occasionally with their inhabitants-and the artist's resolute avoidance

of the heroic stance associated with Abstract Expressionism.1 Yet Bechtle, more than the

other Photo Realim, chose to paint a particular kind of photograph, the ordinarysnapshot­

of his family, for example, posed in front of a station wagon. His choice was no accident, as

he explained at the time: "When I'm photographing a car in front of a house I try to keep in

mind what a real estate photographer would do if he were taking a picture of the house and

try for that quality." 2 Other Photo Realists. to be sure, made paintings from photographs

that could have been snapshots. But in the paintings themselves, only Bechtle's had the

atmosphere of ordinary, family photographs because he purposely avoided the virtuoso

effects that for the most part characterized the work of his colleagues.

Although Bechtle was probably unaware of it, at about the same time in Southern

California another artist, John Baldessari, was making photographs of typical street scenes

which he had printed directly on canvas. A more d istant parallel, one whose work Bechtle

would not have known, was the German artist Gerhard Richter, who in 1962 began to paint

black and white photographs he had found in newspapers and books, and after 1966 often

worked from snapshots he had made himself. Because of the way they were painted or; in

Baldessari's case, printed, one would never mistake a work of Bechtle's for a Richter or a

Baldessari. Nevertheless. by basing his paintings on snapshots as they did. Bechtle chose to

situate his work outside the boundaries of painting as it had traditionally been practiced

seeming to leave aside such issues as composition, color, and formal invention, as all of these

had been determined the moment the camera's shutter was released. Bechtle's paintings

were thus akin to Marcel Duchamp's Ready-mades, outside the realm of aesthetic choice

and taste, whether good or bad, inherently insignificant in their subject matter, and alto­

gether beyond the issues of style.

The experience of looking at one of Bechtle's paintings is of course quite different

from seeing the photo-paintings of Richter or Baldessari. For one thing, the photographic

image in their work is difficult to read, deliberately blurred in Richter's case, imperfectly

registered in the transfer to canvas in the case of Baldessari . In both we realize at once that

we are encountering a highly conditional image, one that refers as much to the printed

media they are taken from or inspired by as to what is in the photographs themselves. In

Bechtle's paintings, on the other hand, we see with absolute clarity, as if we were in the

presence of reality itself. Because photographs convey so much information, and because

Parking Garage with Impala. 1990

Bechtle has been so successful at transferring much of that information to canvas, his paint­

ings seem to be-and to some extent are-entirely objective, and we tend to give them the

concentrated, allover attention that we give to photographs. It is as if they were snapshots,

enormously enlarged and taken by someone other than ourselves, and our first response to

them is almost like an intense, but nonsexual, voyeurism. We recognize the familiar subjects

immediately because they are familiar streets and cars of the sort we know well in our own

lives, and we believe the paintings to be not only real. but somehow true. Yet because the

works are paintings, which our experience suggests almost invariably depict people or

events either of unusual interest or in a striking or revealing way, our expectations are

heightened, and we anticipate finding something both true and significant.

What we find, of course, is what we already know: a reality that, though being some­

one else's, is more or less the same as our own. Where we expect a message, there is none,

and we are left with the same world we encounter everyday. Inevitably, there is a moment

of disappointment, as we discover nothing but our own world, untransformed by the Roman­

tic or Expressionist conventions we have come to expect from art. Yet the very ordinariness

of Bechtle's vision is in some ways its point, and at the same time the source of its contem­

poraneity. What you see in his art is in fact what you get in lifo itself. Bechtle's paintings, like

the early work of Andy Warhol and Frank Stella, are entirely honest in their relationship to

the world and their refusal to use art for transcendental purposes.

Over the years, Bechtle's work has changed, but not greatly. An early critic, Carter

Ratcliff, found that "these pictures would be empty if it weren't for the bright California

light which Bechtle manages to bring (via high-toned, warm color) from the photo to the

canvas. I wonder if his concern isn't with this light, and if his subject matter isn't chosen (by

the camera- the artist as photographer) not for itself but for its usefulness in making this

light credible.''l Since then, Bechtle's concern with light has grown. In the late sixties and

early seventies the light in his paintings tended to be frontal and pervasive, without any real

indication of a particular time of day. In his more recent work he often uses back and side

lighting for interior scenes (which were themselves quite rare in his earlier paintings), and

his landscapes tend to be set in the early morning or late afternoon, when shadows are

more visible and light itself is sometimes an important presence. Today Bechtle sometimes

paints what could be called portraits-of himself, his wife, and their friends. Although the

artist and his family sometimes appeared in the early work, they tended to be generic

figures, stand-ins for the typical American couple and their children in their own snapshots.

Now we encounter genuine likenesses of real individuals in his work.

Overall, what could be seen as the conceptual bent of Bechtle's earlier work has

lessened somewhat in favor of a more traditional realism as the snapshot quality of the

photographs he paints is sometimes reduced, and as the figures in his paintings become less

posed and more active, and even seem to have their own interior lives. At times Bechtle's

current work comes close to that of the great realist painters he has alwaysadmired (Winslow

Homer and Edward Hopper are especially near in some works in this exhibition), and his art

contradicts our expectations less often. We are always, after all, more comfortable in the

artist's studio than fixed in an empty street or parking lot. Now. instead of a street Bechtle

tends to paint a neighborhood, or at least a row of houses, and the light has become a warm,

almost reassuring presence.Yet in some works, such as Parking Garage with Impala, we seem

to be back in the bleak but altogether familiar world Bechtie painted two decades ago. Th is

time, however; we can enter the space instead of simply interrogating the plethora of details

transferred from the photograph, and the single Chevrolet, standing alone in a vast and

unpleasant multilevel parking garage, seems to be a surrogate for our own, often-repeated

experience. Taken together, Bechtle's new work suggests that he has acquired a wary human­

ism that encompasses at once the banal desolation of much of contemporary life, the visual,

sensual pleasures of California light, and the reassuring presence of other human beings.

John Caldwell

Curator of Pointing and Sculpture

1. William C. Seitz, for example, de~ribed Bechtle's content as a "qLJietly ironic submission to the Nixonian

era:' "The Real and the Artificial: Painting of the New Environment:' Art in America 60, no. 6 (November/

December 1972): 71.

2. Brian O'Doherty, "The Photo Real im: 12 Interviews;· Ibid, 74.

3.Carter Ratcliff. "New York;' Art lnternotionol 14. no. 4 (April 1970): 68.

Cover: Potrero intersection- 20th and Arko mos, 1990

ROBERT BECHTLE

Born in San Francisco, 1932

Lives and works in San Francisco

EDUCATION

California College of Ans and Crafcs, B.A., 1954 California College of Arts and Crafts. M.F.A.. 1958 Universicy of California, Berkeley, 1960, 1961 (Summer Sessions)

INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS

1965 Richmond Art Cente1; Richmond, California

Berkeley Gallery. Berkeley

1966 E.B. Crocker Art Gallery, Sacramento

1967 Berkeley Gallery, San Francisco

San Francisco Museum of Art

Davis Art Cente1; Davis. California

1969 Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Am. California Palace of the Legion of Hono1: San Francisco

1971 0.K. Harris Works of Art, New York

1973 John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco (cacalogue)

Jack Glenn Gallery. San Diego

Robert Bechtle: A Retrospective Exhibition, E.B. Crocker Art Gallery. Sacramento; Fine Arcs Gallery of San Diego (catalogue)

1974 O.K. Harris Works of Art, New York

1977 O.K. Harris Works of Arc, New York

1980 Robert Bechtle: Matrix/Berkeley 33, University Art Museum, Berkeley (brochure)

1981 O.K. Harris Works of Art, New York

1984 O.K. Harris Works of Arc, New York

1987 O.K. Harris Works of Art, New York

1991 Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco Daniel Wein berg Gallery, Santa Monica

SELECTED GROUP

EXHIBITIONS

1957 Richmond Art Center, Richmond, California

Oakland Art Museum

1959 San Francisco Museum of Arc

1960 Wi.1ter Invitational. California Palace of che Legion of Honor. San Francisco

1964 San Francisco Museum of Arc

1966 East Bay Realists, San Francisco Art lnsticute

1967 The Artist os His Subiect. Museum of Modern Art, New York

A nnuol Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting. Whitney Muse um of American Arc, New York (catalogue)

1968 The West Coast Now. Portland Art Museum, Ponland, Oregon (catalogue)

Realism Now, Vassar College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie. New York (catalogue)

1969 Direaions 2: Aspects of a New Realism. Milwaukee Art Center: Con temporary Arts Museum, Houston: Akron Art Institute (cacalogue)

1970 Directly Seen: New Realism in California, Newport Harbor Art Museum, Balboa, California (catalogue)

22 Realists, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (cacalogue)

The Highway, lnstituceof Contemporary Art. University of Penns)lvania, Philadelphia: Institute for the Arts. Rice University, Houscon; Akron Art Institute (catalogue)

American Painting 1970, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond (cacalogue)

The Arrested Image, Oakland Museum (catalogue)

1971 Radical Realism, Museum of Con tern po r ary Art, Chicago (brochure)

1972 California Pointing. Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo

California Prints, Museum of Modern Art, New York

The Realist Revival, New York Cultural Center

Documenta S, Kassel, West Germany (catalogue)

Caltfornla Representation: Eight Parnters in Oocumento 5. Santa Barbara Museum of Art

Amer1kamscher Fotoreolismus, WOrttembergischer Kunstverem, Stuttgart (catalogue)

1973 Ekstrem Real1sme, Louisiana Museum, Humleback. Denmark (catalogue)

1973 Biennial &h1brt10n: CantemporaryAmerocan Arc. Whitney Museum of Amerrcan Art, New York (catalogue)

Image, Realliy, and Svperreolity, Art~ Council of Great Britain; traveling exhibition (catalogue)

Photo-Realrsm: Parntrngs, Sculp!Ure and Prints from the Ludwig Collection and Others, Serpentine Gallery. London (catalogue)

1974 New Photo-Realism, Wadsworth Athene um, Hartford

1975 Image, Color, and Form: Recent Pam tings by Eleven Amencans, Toledo Museum of Art (catalogue)

Richard Brown Boker Col!ects!, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut (catalogue)

Super Realrsm, Baltimore Museum of Art (brochure)

1976 Amerrca 1976. Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (catalogue)

Amerrca as Art. National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian lnsmution, Washington, D.C. (catalogue)

Contemporary Images in Watercolor. Akron Art lnsmute; lnd1anapol1s Museum of Art; Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, New York (catalogue)

1977 Illusion and Reality, Australian National Gallery, Canberra (catalogue)

A View of the Decade. Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (catalogue)

1978 Callfomf<l: Three by Eight Twrce. Honolulu Academy of Arts, Honolulu

1979 Late 1wentreth-Century Art fram the Sydney and Frances Lewi• Foundation Institute of Contem­porary Art. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (catalogue)

1981 Real, Really Real. Super Real: DirectlOns ;n Contemporary Realism, San Antonio Museum of Art, Texas

Seven Photorealists from New York Collections, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (brochure)

1982 Drawings by Calrfornra Painters. Long Beach Museum of Art, California: Oakland Museum (catalogue)

1983 West-Coast Realism, Laguna Beach Museum of Art. California (catalogue)

Directions In Bay Area Pam ting: A Sur Ry of Three Decades, 1940s-1960s, Richard L. Nelson Gallery. University of California, Davis

American Interiors, Cal ifornia Palace of the Legion of Honor. San Francisco

1985 American Realism: Twentieth-Century Watercolors and Drawings (rom the Glenn C. Jonss Collection, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (catalogue)

Views across America. Gannett Company. New York; organized by the Museum of Modern Art Advisory Service

American Realism, William Sawyer Gallery, San Francisco

1989 Pat Hearn Gallery, New York

A Decade of American Drawing, 1980-89, Daniel Weinberg Gallery. Los Angeles

1990 Calt{tirn;o A-Zand Return, The Butler Institute of Amerrcan Art, Youngstown, Ohio (catalogue)

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Artist's Statemenrs

Bechtle, Robert. ·~rtist's Statement:' In Robert Bechtle: A Retrospective Exhibition (exh. cat.) Sacramento: E.B.Crocker Art Gallery. 1973.

O'Doherty. Brian. "The Photo-Realists: 12 Inter­views- Robert Bechtle.'' Art in Amerrca 60, no. 6(November/December1972): 73-74.

Albright, Thomas. "An Artist with Vision:· San Froncrsco Chronicle, October 26, 1973.

-- . "A Wide View of the New Realises:· San Francisco Chronicle, February 6, 1975.

Alloway. Lawrence." Notes on Realism:· Arts Maeazrne «.no. 6 (April 1970): 26-29.

Amman.Jean Christophe. "Realismus:' Flash Art 32-34 (May- July 1972): 50-52.

Battcock. Gregory. ed. Super Realrsm: A Crolical Anthology. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1975.

Chase, Linda. and Ted Mc Burnett. ~Interviews with Robert Bechtle, Tom Blackwell, Chuck Close. Richard Estes, and John Salt:' Opus lnterncmona/, no. 44/45 (June 1973): 38-50.

Chase, Linda. "Photo Realism: Post-modernist lllusionism'.' Arc lncernac1onal 20, no. 3-4 (March/April 1976): 14-27.

Frankenstein, Alfred. "Realism Brought Down to Date'.' Son F10nc1sca Chronicle. February 2. 1967.

--. ''A 'Cool' Retrospecuve of a Master New Realist." San Francisca Sunday Exam mer and Chronicle, October 7, 1973.

Fried, Alexander. Review. San Francisco Examiner, Augusc 11, 1967.

Friedman, Martin. Peter Gay. and Robert Pincus­W1tten. A View of a Decade. Chicago: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1977.

Honisch, Dieter, and Jens Christian Jensen. Ame,.kanische Kunst von 1945 bis Heu!e. Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag, 1976.

Hopkins, Henry. Fifty 'lrbt Coast Arcrscs. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1981.

Hughes. Robert. ''Arts Critical Report: An Omn~ vorousand Literal Dependence'.' Arcs Magazine 48, no. 9(June1974): 25-29.

Larson, Kay. "Painting the Public Lands:' Arc News 75. no. 1 (January1976): 32-36.

lindey, Christine. Superrealisc Painting and Sculptu1e New York: Morrow, 1980.

Lucie.Smith. Edward. Super Realism. Oxford: Phaidon. 1979.

Marandel. J. Patrice. "Lettre de New York'.' Art lncernac1onal 14. no. S (May 1970): 73-75.

-- . "The Deductive Image: Notes on Some Figurative Painters." Arc International 15, no. 7 (September 1971 ): 58-6 l.

Markell. John. "Robert Bechtle's Photo Realism'.' Daily Colifornran Arcs Magazine (Berkeley), November 2, 1973.

Meisel, Louis K. Pho!o-real•sm. New York: Abrams, 1980.

Monte, James. "San Francisco.'' Arcforum S, no. 2 (October 1966): 56-57.

Perrault, John. "Four Artists'.' Soho ~kly News, December 29, 1977.

--. "Realisms'.' Ari Express 2. no. 2 (March/April 1982): 34-38.

Pincus-Witten. Robert. "lwent)'-twO Realists, Whitney Museum'.' Artforum 8. no. 8 (April 1970): 74-77.

Plagens. Peter. Sunshine Muse: Concempora1 y Alt on the ~sc Coast New York: Praeger, 1974.

Ratcliff, Carter. "New York:' Art lncernatiOna/14. no. 4 (Apnl 1970): 67- 71.

--. "New York Letter'.' Arc lnternoCKJnol 16. no. 2 (February 1972): 54-55.

Richard. Paul. "New Smithsonian Art: From 'The Sublime· to Photo Realism:· 'Aflshmgton Post. November 30, 1978.

Rose. Barbara, ed. Readrngs in American Arc. 1900-1975, 229, 231. New York: Praeger; 1975.

Rose, Barbara, and Jules D. Prown. Amerrcan Porncrng. New York: Sk1ra/Riuoli. 1977.

Rosenblum. Robert. "Pamtmg Amenca First'.' Arc rn America 64, no. 1 (January/February1976): 82-85.

Russell, John. "In Connecticut: Contemporary C lassies at Aldrich.'' New ~ark Times, August 4, 1989.

Schjeldahl, Peter. "Too Easy To Be Art1" New York Times, May 12, 197 4.

-- . "Opposites Attract:' Village \lo ice 26, no. 16 (April 16, 1981): 83.

Seitz, William C. "The Real and the Artificial: Painting of the New Environment:' Art in America 60, no. 6 (November/December 1972): 58-72.

Stofflet-Santiago. Mary. MContemporary Explorers of the American Landscape'.' Artweek 8. no. 33 (October8. 1977).

Ward.John L. AmertcanRealrscPamcing, 1945-1980. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press. 1988.

CHECKLIST

PAINTINGS

Ingleside Street 1986 oil on canvas 48 x 69 in. (121.9x175.3 cm) Collection of Alice Saligman, Gladwyne, Pennsylvania

Broome Street Zenith 1987 oil on canvas 48 x 69 in. (121.9 x 175.3 cm) Collection of Noah Liff. Nashville

Ocean Avenue 1987 oil on canvas 40 x SOYi in. (101.6 x 128.3 cm) Collection of Pacific Telesis Group, San Francisco

Sunset /ntersectran - 40ch and Vrcente 1989 oil on canvas 48 x 69 in. (121.9x175.3 cm) Collection of Louis Meisel, New York

Ooklond lntersecuon-S9111 and Stonf ord 1990 oil on canvas 40 x SB in. (101.6 x 147.3 cm) Courtesy of the artist, Gallery Paule Angllm, San Francisco, and O.K. Harris, New York

Potrero Intersection-20th and Arkansas 1990 otl on canvas

40 x 58 1n. (101.6 x 147.J cm) Courtesy of the artlSt. Gallery Paule Anghm, San Francisco. and O.K. Hams. New York

WATERCOLORS

Broome Street Walkman 1987 watercolor on paper 23 x 30 in. (58.4 x 76.2 cm) Collecuon of Mr.Jason Schoen. New Orleans

Oolr.lond lntersecoon-S9111 and Stanford

1988 wuercolor on paper 23 x 30 m. (58.4 x 76.2 cm) Courtesy James Corcoran Gallery. Santa Mon tea

Ookland Intersection-Wesr and 40rh 1989 watercolor on paper 22Y. x 30\4 in. (57.B x 76.B cm) Courtesy of the artist, Gallery Paule Anghm, San FranclSCo, and 0.1<. Hams, New York

Potrero Stroller-Crossing Arkansas Street

1989 watercolor on paper 23 x 30 1n. (58.4 x 76.2 cm) Courtesy of California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland

Tram to Kwe1/in

1989 watercolor on paper 8'h x 12\/i 1n. (21.6 x 31.8 cm) Collecuon of Kathan Brown and Tom Marioni

Kansas Streer 1990 watercolor on paper 22\li x 29'h in. (57.2 x 74.9 cm) Courtesy of the artist, Gallery Paule Anghm, San Francisco, and O.K. HarPS, New York

NfW

DRAWINGS

Ocean View Sration Wagon

1990 charcoal on paper 7x15 in. (17.B x 38.1 cm) Courtesy Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Santa Monica

Parking Garage with Impala 1990 charcoal on paper 9'h x 11 in. (24.1 x 35.6 cm) Private collection

Srerlrng Alfenue. Alameda I 1990 charcoal on paper 10 x 14 in. (25.4 x 35.6 cm) Courtesy Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Santa Monica

Twentieth Street VW 1990 charcoal on paper 10 x 14 1n. (25.4 x 35.6 cm) Courtesy Daniel Weinberg Gallery. Santa Monka

WC at Block Island 1990 charcoal on paper 10 x 11 in. (25.4 x 27.9 cm) Courtesy Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Santa Monica

20th Street Capri 1991 charcoal on paper

9 x 16 in. (22.9 x 40.6 cm) Courtesy of the artist, Gallery Paule Anglim.

San F ranclsco. and OK Harris, New York

Ster/mg A\'Cnue. Alameda II

1991 charcoal on paper 10 x 14 1n. (25.4 x 35.6 cm) Collection of Ph1hp Anglim, Venice. California

Robert Bechtle: New Work is generously supported by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's Collectors Forum.

© 1991 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 401 Van Ness Avenue. San Francisco, California 94102-4582

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 1s a privately funded. member-supported museum receiving maJOr support from Grants for the Ans of the San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund and the National Endowment for the Arts. a Federal ageocy

A SERIES OF RECENT WORK BY YOUNGER AND ESTABLISHED ARTISTS