Sonia Gechtoff (1926–2018) was a pioneering Abstract Expressionist painter whose large-scale canvases helped define the postwar San Francisco art scene. Working with vigorous brushstrokes and often applying paint with a palette knife, Gechtoff developed an intensely gestural approach in which forms suggest landscapes, figures and architectural structures without fully resolving into representation. Born in Philadelphia, Gechtoff earned her B.F.A. from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1950 and moved to San Francisco in 1951. She quickly became a prominent figure in the Bay Area’s emerging Abstract Expressionist community, receiving national attention alongside artists including Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline and Jackson Pollock. She moved to New York in 1958 but maintained an important place in Northern California art history. In 1983, her work was included in Directions in Bay Area Painting: A Survey of Three Decades, 1940s–1960s at UC Davis’ Richard L. Nelson Gallery and Memorial Union Art Gallery.