Fred Becker

Becker was born in Oakland, California, and raised in Hollywood. He attended the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles before moving to New York to study architecture at New York University. Becker became a respected printmaker in the 1930s, working with the W.P.A. and exhibiting at the Museum of Modern Art and the Willard Gallery. In 1940, he was in the inaugural class of Stanley William Hayter's Atelier 17 at the New School for Social Research. After serving in World War II he resumed work with Atelier 17, incorporating Constructivist influences into his work. He taught at the Tyler School at Temple University in Philadelphia, at Washington University in Saint Louis, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.