A Life Etched in Social Realism: The World of Fred Becker Frederick Gerhard Becker, known as Fred Becker (1913-2004), was a pivotal figure in American printmaking whose career spanned the dynamic decades of the mid-20th century. Born into the burgeoning world of Hollywood – his father being a silent film actor – Becker’s early life offered a glimpse into the power of visual storytelling, though his own artistic path would soon diverge from the silver screen towards the more tactile and immediate realm of printmaking. A brief foray into architecture at New York University in 1933 quickly gave…