Photorealist painter Robert Bechtle’s source images are most likely not trending on Instagram. His trademark subjects, when reviewed as a list, sound tearfully forgettable: parked cars, covered parked cars, middle class suburban houses, trees, peopleless streets. Yet, he conjures something moving and miraculous with these ascetic ingredients. more
In a 2010 interview Judith Olch Richards asked Mr. Bechtel about use of the photograph...
Well, I think it's changed, but it's by small degrees. I have friends that - painted from photographs - that would say that their ambition was to make the painting look as much like the photograph as they could, but I didn't feel that that was my intent.I kept in reserve a sense that there was a certain painterly quality that I was trying to achieve, even in the most - you know, the period that I think of as the most precisely painted - you know, mid-'70s to, say, mid-'80s - and I think I started looking for ways that I could expand on the painterliness, find ways of painting a little more roughly, not finishing things quite so much. And when you're working with photographs as a source, it's very hard to break away from [all the information] - there's a certain tyranny that the photo imposes.
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| Six Cars on 20th Street, 2007, Watercolor on paper, 22 3/8 x 30 inches |
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| Covered Car - Alameda, 2009, Watercolor on paper, 10 x 14 inches |
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