Robert Bechtle

Three Houses on Pennsylvania Avenue, 2011

 20th Street Capri, 2002

"The images are things that are familiar to me for whatever reason." -Bechtle

 "I'm constantly making photographs to work from. The photographs will many times gestate on the light table for months or years even." -Bechtle

Alameda Camaro, 1967

"I think of etching as being essentially linear, which of course it's not. I tend to think tonally so I've had to figure out a way of drawing tonally but doing it in a way that I can kind of control." -Bechtle

- I found this interesting because I can definitely identify with the idea that an artist has to find different ways to navigate space and light in different media with different demands.

 - born in San Francisco in 1932
- I became interested in his work because it is full of undeniable depictions of San Francisco but still show facets of the city that are rarely represented.
- All very clean and intentional marks
- also makes watercolors, paintings, and drawings, described printmaking as a "parallel" to his other work

Ralph Goings

- Considered an early photorealist alongside John Baeder, Richard Estes, Chuck Close, and Ralph Goings.
- I find these artists much more aggressive and presentational and shiny while Bechtle's work is almost impressionistically unassuming.

John Baeder

Richard Estes

http://www.magical-secrets.com/artists/bechtle
http://www.magical-secrets.com/artists/bechtle/video
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bechtle