Robert Bechtle's guest appearances

Robert Bechtle

Oral History Collection from the Archives of American Art

KQED: Spark Art Video Podcast

Spark

Rene Garcia

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

John Abduljaami

Ned Kahn

Mark Fiore

Thai Bui

Garry Knox Bennett

Julie Seltzer

Janice Garrett

Miss Tilly

Herb Parker

Matt Heckert

Kate Pocrass

Li Huayi

Sanjay Patel

OwlTail

This Educator Guide corresponds with the "Robert Bechtle: Painter" video from KQED Spark.

Robert Bechtle: Painter: Educator Guide

From the mid-1960s to the present, Robert Bechtle has created sharply-focused pictures of people and street scenes with a special attention to automobiles. In this excerpt from an oral history interview conducted in 2010 for the Archives of American Art, Bechtle talks about using photography as a visual aid, as well as the value of seeing his subjects from different vantage points. The first voice you will hear is interviewer Judith Richards. This interview was funded by the Terra Foundation for American Art.

Robert Bechtle interview excerpt

Discover the painstaking method behind Robert Bechtle's extraordinary photorealist works.

Robert Bechtle: Painter

For more than forty years Robert Bechtle has been widely recognized as one of the founders of American Photorealism, a style of painting that rivals the detail and objectivity of the photograph. Spark watches Bechtle at work rendering one of his favorite subjects -- his Potrero Hill neighborhood -- and talking about his motivations and images as he prepares for a retrospective exhibit of his work at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (February 12 through June 5, 2005).

Spark: Robert Bechtle