Education
He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts (1954) and Master of Fine Arts (1958) from the California College of Arts and Crafts, now the California College of the Arts, in Oakland, California. When he graduated, he was drafted and sent to Berlin, where he painted murals in the Mess Hall and delighted in visiting European museums.
Career
Except for his military service in Germany, Bechtle has lived all his life in the Bay Area. And his art is centered on scenes from everyday life. He started drawing at a young age and, with encouragement from his teachers and his family, pursued a future as an artist.
Bechtle began in lithography but, after 1982 when Crown Point Press began publishing his prints, worked mainly in etching.
He taught at San Francisco State University (1968-1968–99) and lives in San Francisco"s Potrero Hill neighborhood. Robert Bechtle"s work has been exhibited internationally and is in the collections of New York City"s Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Guggenheim.
Minneapolis"s Walker Art Center. The Smithsonian Institution.
And the San Francisco Museum of Modern Artist
Bechtle is represented by Barbara Gladstone Gallery in New York City and Gallery Paule Anglim in San Francisco. "Robert Bechtle: A Retrospective" exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (February 12 - June 5, 2005), the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (June 26 - August 28, 2005) and at the Corcoran Gallery of Artist In May to October 2000, the Oakland Museum led a retrospective of Bechtle"s paintings, "California Classic: Realist Paintings by Robert Bechtle".
Bechtle has made prints with Crown Point Press in San Francisco since 1982.