This is a painting by Robert Bechtle from 1974. It's called Alameda Gran Torino. Yes, that's right: Alameda. My home town, as well as the backdrop of my first novel. I found out about Bechtle's work a few years ago at an exhibit at SFMOMA. I was blown away. I saw several paintings of houses and cars I used to walk by every day on my way to school (or up to less noble pursuits). I was in a time machine, and Bechtle caught my childhood through a filter not unlike my own: simultaneously real and unreal, comic almost, sun-painted stucco and a terra cotta hyper gloss at the western end of a continent. More so, when I was in high school, I used to drive around and photograph old cars. And there, right on the walls of the museum, was one of the three Northern California artists who developed West Coast Photorealism, and he had set his canvas in my hometown. One of his preferred subjects: cars parked on streets. I thought I had found a kindred spirit. I found out he was still alive (in his early seventies), and living in San Francisco. So I sent him a copy of my book and a letter, explaining how I felt about his work, c/o a director at MOMA. Of course, I never heard back.
