FORT WORTH, TX.- Organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the first full-scale retrospective of the work of Robert Bechtle will be on view at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in the summer of 2005. The exhibition will trace Bechtle's forty-year career, from his work in the early 1960s to his most recent paintings, drawings, and watercolors.

Robert Bechtle has spent the past four decades documenting scenes of his Bay Area surroundings, following a procedure that involves taking snapshots of manicured suburban environments with a cool, seemingly dispassionate vision, then translating the photographs into paint on canvas. Bechtle avoids a glamorous interpretation of his environment in favor of simply presenting the facts. While his images suggest the casual immediacy of a snapshot, the surfaces of his paintings are the result of a subtle quality of touch that transcends the photographic and is peculiar to Bechtle.

The exhibition will examine Bechtle's process, including the relationship between the various mediums he has pursued, and his use of photography, both practically and conceptually, while also addressing its relevance to the younger generation of artists.