Fred Reichman (1925-2005) was born in Bellingham Washington and moved to San Francisco in 1934. There he met his wife Michela, raised his son and daughter and was a well-known artist and art instructor. After receiving his B.A. and M.A. from UC Berkeley and living in Europe for two years on a UC Berkeley Taussig fellowship, he taught at the University of California at Berkeley, University of California at Davis, San Francisco Art Institute and the University of California extension in San Francisco.

​

His paintings are in many public collections including the National Museum of American Art in Washington, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Legion of Honor, Oakland Museum, Berkeley University Art Museum and others. Private shows have included San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Taos and Santa Fe New Mexico, Tokyo and Osaka Japan and Wiesbaden Germany.

​

Fred Reichman originally worked from his imagination and was influenced by Paul Klee creating abstract landscapes. His focus shifted after traveling in Europe and seeing the great Asian art collections with an emphasis on Japanese art. Reichman's mature style and inspiration evolved from a combination of Western European, West Coast and Eastern influences including C�zanne, Matisse, Pascin, Piazzoni, Sengai, Chu-ta and haiku poetry, in particular Issa. Like the haiku poetry he loved, Reichman's work was based on personal observation of the intimate with "a focus on nature with compression and economy of means".