Robert Bechtle (1932–2020) was a painter and printmaker recognized as a leading figure in Photorealism. Born in San Francisco and raised in Alameda, he earned his B.F.A. in 1954 and M.F.A. in 1958 from the California College of Arts and Crafts. Rejecting the expressive brushwork associated with Bay Area Figuration, Bechtle developed a precise, painting style based on photographs of everyday life. His sunlit depictions of suburban houses, parked automobiles, neighborhood streets and family members capture the distinctive atmosphere of postwar California. Although meticulously rendered, his paintings retain subtle traces of the artist's hand, exploring the relationship between photographic observation and painterly interpretation. Bechtle taught briefly at UC Davis before joining the faculty of San Francisco State University in 1968, where he remained until 1999. His work was the subject of a major retrospective at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2005 and is held in collections including the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art and Smithsonian American Art Museum.