NEW WORK

SAN FRANCISCO ROBERT BECHTLE : NEW WORK SEPTEMBER 10 - DECEMBER 1, 1991

Born in in 1932, Robert Bechtle studied at the 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 , , 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 distant 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 ofdisappointment, 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 SELECTED GROUP Born in San Francisco, 1932 EXHIBITIONS Lives and works in San Francisco 1957 Richmond Art Center, Richmond, California Oakland Art Museum EDUCATION 1959 California College of Ans and Crafcs, B.A., 1954 San Francisco Museum of Arc California College of Arts and Crafts. M.F.A.. 1960 1958 Wi.1ter Invitational. California Palace of che Legion Universicy of California, Berkeley, 1960, 1961 of Honor. San Francisco (Summer Sessions) 1964 San Francisco Museum of Arc INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS 1966 1965 East Bay Realists, San Francisco Art lnsticute Richmond Art Cente1; Richmond, California 1967 Berkeley Gallery. Berkeley The Artist os His Subiect. Museum of Modern Art, 1966 New York E.B. Crocker Art Gallery, Sacramento Annuol Exhibition of Contemporary American 1967 Painting. Whitney Muse um of American Arc, New Berkeley Gallery, San Francisco York (catalogue) San Francisco Museum of Art 1968 Davis Art Cente1; Davis. California The West Coast Now. Portland Art Museum, Ponland, Oregon (catalogue) 1969 Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Am. Realism Now, Vassar College Art Gallery, California Palace of the Legion of Hono1: San Poughkeepsie. New York (catalogue) Francisco 1969 1971 Direaions 2: Aspects ofa New Realism. Milwaukee 0.K. Harris Works of Art, New York Art Center: Con temporary Arts Museum, Houston: Akron Art Institute (cacalogue) 1973 John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco (cacalogue) 1970 Directly Seen: New Realism in California, Newport Jack Glenn Gallery. San Diego Harbor Art Museum, Balboa, California Robert Bechtle: A Retrospective Exhibition, (catalogue) E.B. Crocker Art Gallery. Sacramento; Fine Arcs 22 Realists, Whitney Museum of American Art, Gallery of San Diego (catalogue) New York (cacalogue) 1974 The Highway, lnstituceof Contemporary Art. O.K. Harris Works of Art, New York University of Penns)lvania, Philadelphia: Institute 1977 for the Arts. Rice University, Houscon; Akron O.K. Harris Works of Arc, New York Art Institute (catalogue) 1980 American Painting 1970, Virginia Museum of Fine Robert Bechtle: Matrix/Berkeley 33, University Art Arts, Richmond (cacalogue) Museum, Berkeley (brochure) The Arrested Image, Oakland Museum (catalogue) 1981 1971 O.K. Harris Works of Art, New York Radical Realism, Museum of Con tern po r ary Art, 1984 Chicago (brochure) O.K. Harris Works of Arc, New York 1972 1987 California Pointing. Albright-Knox Art Gallery, O.K. Harris Works of Art, New York Buffalo 1991 California Prints, Museum of Modern Art, New Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco York Daniel Wein berg Gallery, Santa Monica The Realist Revival, New York Cultural Center Documenta S, Kassel, West Germany (catalogue) Caltfornla Representation: Eight Parnters in 1982 Oocumento 5. Santa Barbara Museum of Art Drawings by Calrfornra Painters. Long Beach Museum of Art, California: Oakland Museum Amer1kamscher Fotoreolismus, WOrttembergischer (catalogue) Kunstverem, Stuttgart (catalogue) 1983 1973 West-Coast Realism, Laguna Beach Museum of Ekstrem Real1sme, Louisiana Museum, Humleback. Art. California (catalogue) Denmark (catalogue) Directions In Bay Area Pam ting: A Sur Ry of Three 1973 Biennial &h1brt10n: CantemporaryAmerocan Decades, 1940s-1960s, Richard L. Nelson Gallery. Arc. Whitney Museum of Amerrcan Art, New University of California, Davis York (catalogue) American Interiors, Cal ifornia Palace of the Legion Image, Realliy, and Svperreolity, Art~ Council of of Honor. San Francisco Great Britain; traveling exhibition (catalogue) Photo-Realrsm: Parntrngs, Sculp!Ure and Prints from 1985 American Realism: Twentieth-Century Watercolors the Ludwig Collection and Others, Serpentine and Drawings (rom the Glenn C. Jonss Collection, Gallery. London (catalogue) San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 1974 (catalogue) New Photo-Realism, Wadsworth Athene um, Hartford Views across America. Gannett Company. New York; organized by the Museum of Modern Art 1975 Advisory Service Image, Color, and Form: Recent Pam tings by Eleven Amencans, Toledo Museum of Art (catalogue) American Realism, William Sawyer Gallery, San Francisco Richard Brown Boker Col!ects!, Yale Un iversity Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut (catalogue) 1989 Pat Hearn Gallery, New York Super Realrsm, Baltimore Museum of Art (brochure) A Decade ofAmerican Drawing, 1980-89, Daniel Weinberg Gallery. Los Angeles 1976 Amerrca 1976. Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1990 Washington, D.C. (catalogue) Calt{tirn;o A-Zand Return, The Butler Institute of Amerrcan Art, Youngstown, Ohio (catalogue) Amerrca as Art. National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian lnsmution, Washington, D.C. (catalogue) SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Contemporary Images in Watercolor. Akron Art Artist's Statemenrs lnsmute; lnd1anapol1s Museum of Art; Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, New York Bechtle, Robert. ·~rtist's Statement:' In Robert (catalogue) Bechtle: A Retrospective Exhibition (exh. cat.) Sacramento: E.B.Crocker Art Gallery. 1973. 1977 Illusion and Reality, Australian National Gallery, O'Doherty. Brian. "The Photo-Realists: 12 Inter­ Canberra (catalogue) views- Robert Bechtle.'' Art in Amerrca 60, no. 6(November/December1972): 73-74. A View of the Decade. Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (catalogue) Albright, Thomas. "An Artist with Vision:· San 1978 Froncrsco Chronicle, October 26, 1973. Callfomf

Contemporary Realism, San Antonio Museum of Chase, Linda. and Ted Mc Burnett. ~Interviews Art, Texas with Robert Bechtle, Tom Blackwell, Chuck Seven Photorealists from New York Collections, Close. Richard Estes, and John Salt:' Opus Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York lnterncmona/, no. 44/45 (June 1973): 38-50. (brochure) Chase, Linda. "Photo Realism: Post-modernist Richard. Paul. "New Smithsonian Art: From 'The lllusionism'.' Arc lncernac1onal 20, no. 3-4 Sublime· to Photo Realism:· 'Aflshmgton Post. (March/April 1976): 14-27. November 30, 1978.

Frankenstein, Alfred. "Realism Brought Down Rose. Barbara, ed. Readrngs in American Arc. to Date'.' Son F10nc1sca Chronicle. 1900-1975, 229, 231. New York: Praeger; 1975. February 2. 1967. Rose, Barbara, and Jules D. Prown. Amerrcan --. ''A 'Cool' Retrospecuve of a Master New Porncrng. New York: Sk1ra/Riuoli. 1977. Realist." San Francisca Sunday Exam mer and Rosenblum. Robert. "Pamtmg Amenca First'.' Arc Chronicle, October 7, 1973. rn America 64, no. 1 (January/February1976): Fried, Alexander. Review. San Francisco Examiner, 82-85. Augusc 11, 1967. Russell, John. "In Connecticut: Contemporary Friedman, Martin. Peter Gay. and Robert Pincus­ C lassies at Aldrich.'' New ~ark Times, August 4, W1tten. A View ofa Decade. Chicago: Museum 1989. of Contemporary Art, 1977. Schjeldahl, Peter. "Too Easy To Be Art1" New York Honisch, Dieter, and Jens Christian Jensen. Times, May 12, 197 4. Ame,.kanische Kunst von 1945 bis Heu!e. --. "Opposites Attract:' Village \lo ice 26, Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag, 1976. no. 16 (April 16, 1981): 83. Hopkins, Henry. Fifty 'lrbt Coast Arcrscs. Seitz, William C. "The Real and the Artificial: San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1981. Painting of the New Environment:' Art in Hughes. Robert. ''Arts Critical Report: An Omn~ America 60, no. 6 (November/December vorousand Literal Dependence'.' Arcs 1972): 58-72. Magazine 48, no. 9(June1974): 25-29. Stofflet-Santiago. Mary. MContemporary Explorers Larson, Kay. "Painting the Public Lands:' Arc News of the American Landscape'.' Artweek 8. 75. no. 1 (January1976): 32-36. no. 33 (October8. 1977). lindey, Christine. Superrealisc Painting and Sculptu1e Ward.John L. AmertcanRealrscPamcing, 1945-1980. New York: Morrow, 1980. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press. 1988. Lucie.Smith. Edward. Super Realism. Oxford: Phaidon. 1979. CHECKLIST Marandel. J. Patrice. "Lettre de New York'.' Art lncernac1onal 14. no. S (May 1970): 73-75. PAINTINGS --. "The Deductive Image: Notes on Some Ingleside Street Figurative Painters." Arc International 15, no. 7 1986 (September 1971 ): 58-6 l. oil on canvas Markell. John. "Robert Bechtle's Photo Realism'.' 48 x 69 in. (121.9x175.3 cm) Daily Colifornran Arcs Magazine (Berkeley), Collection of Alice Saligman, Gladwyne, November 2, 1973. Pennsylvania Meisel, Louis K. Pho!o-real•sm. New York: Broome Street Zenith Abrams, 1980. 1987 Monte, James. "San Francisco.'' Arcforum S, no. 2 oil on canvas (October 1966): 56-57. 48 x 69 in. (121.9 x 175.3 cm)

Perrault, John. "Four Artists'.' Soho ~kly News, Collection of Noah Liff. Nashville December 29, 1977. Ocean Avenue --. "Realisms'.' Ari Express 2. no. 2 (March/April 1987 1982): 34-38. oil on canvas 40 x SOYi in. (101.6 x 128.3 cm) Pincus- Witten. Robert. "lwent)'-twO Realists, Collection of Pacific Telesis Group, Whitney Museum'.' Artforum 8. no. 8 (April San Francisco 1970): 74-77. Plagens. Peter. Sunshine Muse: Concempora1 y Alt Sunset /ntersectran - 40ch and Vrcente on the ~sc Coast New York: Praeger, 1974. 1989 oil on canvas Ratcliff, Carter. "New York:' Art lncernatiOna/14. 48 x 69 in. (121.9x175.3 cm) no. 4 (Apnl 1970): 67-71. Collection of Louis Meisel, New York --. "New York Letter'.' Arc lnternoCKJnol 16. no. 2 (February 1972): 54-55. Ooklondlntersecuon- S9111 and Stonford DRAWINGS 1990 Ocean View Sration Wagon oil on canvas 1990 40x SB in. (101.6 x 147.3 cm) charcoal on paper Courtesy of the artist, Gallery Paule Angllm, 7x15 in. (17.Bx 38.1 cm) San Francisco, and O.K. Harris, New York Courtesy Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Santa Monica PotreroIntersection-20th and Arkansas ParkingGarage withImpala 1990 1990 otl on canvas charcoal on paper 40x 58 1n. (101.6 x 147.J cm) 9'hx 11 in. (24.1 x 35.6 cm) Courtesy of the GalleryartlSt. PauleAnghm, Private collection San Francisco.and O.K. Hams. New York SrerlrngAlfenue. Alameda I WATERCOLORS 1990 charcoal on paper BroomeStreet Walkman 10x 14 in. (25.4 x35.6 cm) 1987 Courtesy Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Santa Monica watercolor on paper TwentiethStreet VW 23x 30 in. (58.4 x 76.2 cm) 1990 Collecuon of Mr.Jason Schoen.N ew Orleans charcoal on paper Oolr.londlntersecoon -S9111 and Stanford 10 x 14 1n. (25.4 x 35.6 cm) 1988 Courtesy Daniel Weinberg Gallery.Santa Monka wuercolor on paper 23x 30 m. (58.4 x 76.2 cm) WC atBlock Island 1990 CourtesyJames Corcoran Gallery. Santa Montea charcoal on paper Ookland Intersection-Wesra nd 40rh 10x 11 in. (25.4x 2 7.9 cm) 1989 CourtesyD aniel Weinberg Gallery, Santa Monica watercolor on paper Street Capri 22Y. x 30\4 in. (57.B x 76.B cm) 20th 1991 Courtesy of the artist, Gallery Paule Anghm, charcoal on paper San FranclSCo,and 0.1<.a H ms, New York 9 x 16 in. (22.9 x 40.6cm) PotreroStrolle r-Crossing ArkansasStreet Courtesy of the artist, GalleryPau le Anglim. 1989 San F ranclsco.OK and Harris,New York watercolor on paper A\'Cnue.Alameda II 23x 30 1n. (58.4x 76.2 cm) Ster/mg 1991 Courtesy of CaliforniaCollege of Artsand Crafts, Oakland charcoal on paper 10x 14 1n. (25.4x 35.6 cm) Tram toKwe1/in Collection of Ph1hp Anglim, Venice. California 1989 watercoloron paper 8'hx (21.6x 31.8 12\/i1n. cm) RobertBechtle: New Work is generously supported Brown Collecuon of Kathan and Tom Marioni by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's Kansas Streer Collectors Forum.

1990 © 1991 San FranciscoMuseum of ModernArt on watercolor paper 401 Van Ness Avenue.San Fran cisco, 22\lix 29'h in. (57.2x 74.9 cm) California94102-4582 Courtesyof the artist, GalleryPaule Anghm, San Francisco,and O.K. HarPS, New York TheSan Francisco Museum of Modern Art1s a privately funded.member-supported museum receiving maJOrs upportfrom Grants forthe Ans of the San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund and the NationalEndowment fo r the aArts. Federal ageocy NfW

A SERIES OF RECENT WORK BY YOUNGER AND ESTABLISHED ARTISTS