Professor Emeritus Robert Bechtle Makes Potrero Hill His Home

POTRERO VIEW -- Born in San Francisco in 1932, raised in Alameda, artist Robert Bechtle has lived most of his 82 years in the Bay Area. He received his Bachelor and Master of Fine Arts from California College of the Arts and taught painting at San Francisco State University for 30 years. He resides in Potrero Hill. Bechtle works in watercolor, lithography and printmaking. He’s best known for his photorealistic works, a painting style in which an artist re-creates a photograph in the medium of their choice. Bechtle paints scenes inspired by photographs he’s taken in various Bay Area locations, in many cases while on walks in Potrero Hill. Bechtle began painting in this style in the mid-1960s, before photorealism was popularized in the late-1960s, making him a pioneering photorealist painter. Bechtle’s work draws viewers into commonplace, every-day scenes.