Former SF State art professor Robert Bechtle was honored Feb. 12 with the opening of a San Francisco Museum Of Modern Art exhibition on his work.

The exhibit, “Robert Bechtle: A Retrospective,” takes a look at Bechtle’s 40-year career by showcasing some 90 pieces of his work. The show, featuring Bechtle’s works in oil paints, watercolors and charcoal, will run through June 5.

Bechtle, who taught art at SF State from 1968 to 1999, did much of his work in a photorealistic style, meaning that his paintings strongly resemble photographic images. Whitney Chadwick, Bechtle’s wife and an art history professor at SF State, said that artists who started experimenting with photorealism in the 1960s were interested in how a photographic image viewed reality.

Art professor Paul Pratchenko said that Bechtle wasn’t a follower of photorealism but a “pioneer.”
The exhibit’s text notes that photorealists in general, and Bechtle in particular, “translat(e) what seem to be ordinary scenes of middle-class American life into extraordinary paintings.”

Walking into a roomful of Bechtel’s paintings, vibrant and flawless, is like walking into a room full of windows facing the street.

The paintings look so real that it seems as if the viewer is looking at a life-sized photograph. However, upon closer examination, the intricate brush strokes and paint are visible.
Pratchenko described Bechtle’s paint handling as exquisite, the work of a confident paint technician.

“There is no indecision in his work,” he added.
Bechtle’s work defines this in every way. All of his works exhibited are of everyday life, including many familiar Bay Area locations.

“(It’s) a look at the normal,” said Pratchenko. “(Bechtle) appreciates just the way people are.”
Streets, buildings and neighborhoods from all over the Bay Area are recognizable in Bechtel’s art.

Taken together, the paintings look like a photo exhibit of the Bay Area in the 1960s.

“The stuff around me is what I respond to,” Bechtle said of his subject matter.
He has no interest in the exotic, he added, since the point is to work on something you know and have an authority in.

In Bechtle’s case, it is about his immediate surroundings.

Many of his paintings and drawings are titled very simply. Paintings of cars, for example, bear the cars’ names, like “’61 Pontiac” and “Alameda Gran Torino.”

Chadwick said that Bechtel is not trying to give a romantic feel to his work. His titles are very simple, she said, as well as pragmatic.

For example, one oil-on-canvas painting, named “Pink Toothbrush,” was of Bechtle looking in the mirror in the restroom. The pink toothbrush was but a very small part of the entire piece, yet it was the title of the painting.

The exhibit spans Bechtle’s life work, from the 1960s to the present. Each section represents the changes he went through throughout his career. In his early years, Bechtle wouldn’t paint the faces of the human subjects, or he would paint them with very little detail.

Chadwick said this was because Bechtle was not working with photographs at the time.

Though Bechtle’s work looks almost photo-like, Chadwick said that a painting could never exactly be a photograph; no painting can look like that.

“(Photographs) are chemical emotions on paper,” Chadwick said.

Bechtle, who hasn’t seen some of his work since it left his studio, said he was happy with the exhibit. He said that looking at his work it was as if someone else did it.

“I’m very happy with it,” he said. “(It’s) a sincere representation of my work.”

He also added that it was a bit of a surprise being reacquainted with some of his work again. Once they’re on the wall, Bechtle said it was “familiar but not familiar (and) kind of a funny feeling.”

This is Bechtle’s second retrospective. His first was in 1973 at the E.B. Crocker Art Gallery in Sacramento.

The MOMA is open 11 a.m. to 5:45 p.m. Mondays and Tuesdays, 11 a.m. to 8:45, It is closed on Wednesdays, and on Thursdays it is open 11 a.m. to 8:45 p.m. From Friday to Sunday, the museum is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, visit them online at www.sfmoma.org or call (415) 357-4154.