About
This website, first developed in 2017, has been revised as part of my 75th birthday celebration: an opportunity for reminiscence and reflection. It features art I created from 1976 on, and includes paintings of skies, seas and mountains; drawings and watercolors done in San Francisco and overseas; and portraits of friends. Although I am primarily a representational artist, I also have incorporated abstraction in my recent work and motion and stillness series.
My earliest memories were of copying cartoons that my artist uncle drew in our Bronx apartment when I was three years old. Ever since then, the desire to draw and paint has been a thread that has run throughout my life. Wherever I went, and whatever I did, I frequently had a sketchbook with me.
I found kindred spirits when I attended the High School of Music & Art in Manhattan. It was inspiring and humbling to be around classmates who, I thought, could draw and paint so much better than I. Only decades later would I finally realize that being creative was about the process of finding one’s voice as an artist, not a competition for superiority and recognition.
At 17, I left my home in the Bronx for college at the University of Buffalo. I was an American Studies major, but more passionate about the school’s figure drawing classes. After spending two extremely cold winters in upstate New York, I said goodbye to Buffalo and headed south, drawing and painting in the French Quarter of New Orleans and throughout the southwest. My 10= month sojourn across America landed me in Eugene, Oregon. I attended the university, became a credentialed elementary school teacher, and stayed to teach there for seven years. In addition to teaching, I did illustrations for my school’s cookbook, designed the cover for a friend’s novel, and made extra money doing “house portraits.” During this time, I created my very first series of gouache paintings: mandalas.
In 1979, I took a break from teaching and went overseas, exploring, drawing and painting in England, France, Spain, Morocco, Italy, Greece. and Israel. On this year-long trip, I was captivated by the Roman ruins in France, the Moorish tiles and hill towns in Spain, the stark beauty of the Anti-Atlas Mountains of Morocco, and the winding streets in the ancient walled city of Akko. For several months, I drew, painted, and sold my drawings and watercolors in Jerusalem.
Upon my return, I was still feeling unsettled and restless. Something was missing. I was needing to embrace my identity as a person with a disability. In 1981, this inner impulse led me to leave Oregon and become a member of the activist disability community in the San Francisco Bay Area. For the next 37 years, I worked as a social worker, peer counselor and disability rights advocate. But I never stopped drawing and painting. In 1993, I rented my first art studio in San Francisco. Soon after, I began my series of portraits of people with disabilities. Over the next three decades, I have further developed my art practice. This drive to create, to observe carefully, compose intuitively, and develop my voice as an artist continues to this day!
I owe a debt of gratitude to numerous artists and teachers who have awed and inspired me. Just to name some: Rembrandt, Matisse: Gabriele Münter, Giorgio Morandi, Alice Neel, Piet Mondrian, Richard Diebenkorn, Gerhardt Richter, Helen Stanley, Fred Kling, Sharon Pearson, and many artists that I meet in San Francisco daily.
CV
Selected Solo and Group Shows
2025 Transit: How We Move, California State Office Building, San Francisco, CA
2024 Radical Resilience, Ruth’s Table Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2023 Sky, Drawing Room Annex, San Francisco, CA
2022 Tides of Change, Drawing Room Annex, San Francisco, CA
2022 Pictures of People, de Young Museum (online), San Francisco, CA
2021 The Art of Disability Culture, Palo Alto Art Center, Palo Alto, CA
2019 Alchemy, Arts Guild of Sonoma, Sonoma, CA
2014 Eclipses, Big Crow Gallery. San Francisco, CA
2011 SF Open Studios, Francisco Studios, San Francisco, CA
2007 SF Open Studios, Francisco Studios, San Francisco, CA
2002 eMotion Pictures, United Nations, New York, NY
2002 Travels, American Society of Interior Designers, San Francisco, CA
2001 eMotion Pictures, Herbst International Exhibition Hall, San Francisco, CA, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL, and Millennium Art Center, Washington, D.C.
1999 Paintings, World Trade Club, San Francisco, CA
1997 Portraits of People with Disabilities, City College of San Francisco, CA
1994 Body Works, Nexus Foundation, Philadelphia, PA
1994 Selections, Open Studios Annual, SoMARTS Gallery, San Francisco. CA
Bill Bruckner, Artist 