Agua Caliente Nova

Description

In honor of the American Bicentennial in 1975, forty-five American artists were commissioned by the Department of the Interior to depict the American landscape. Here Robert Bechtle shows the desert canyon of the Agua Caliente Indian Reservation near Palm Springs, California, as an incidental backdrop for the view of a Chevrolet Nova, the artist’s wife, and his children. This typical tourist’s snapshot maintains an aura of both tangible familiarity and painterly precision. Bechtle relishes opportunities to explore the mundane, revealing the delicate balance found in the universe of cars, streets, houses, and sidewalks in his hyper-realistic paintings.