Bruce McGaw was born in Berkeley in 1935 and received art training and a degree at the California College of Arts and Crafts, where Richard Diebenkorn was his teacher and acted as his mentor. McGaw's paintings of the mid-1950s reflect his interest in later Abstract Expressionist styles, in their lush colors and loose, spirited forms. By 1957, the artist was moving more deeply into representational work, and into a handling of the figure that seems to draw from more general sources among Bay Area figurative artists. He was one of the artists to exhibit in the contemporary Bay Area Figurative Painting show at the Oakland Art Museum in 1957. His figurative paintings showed angular forms, dissonant colors and bold outlines similar to that of German Expressionism. He taught at the San Francisco Art Institute and was a director in 1988. He was among the first artists who emerged to take up the cause in the late '50s. McGaw's influence has been felt through an active exhibiting career and through his long association with the San Francisco Art Institute, where he continues to act as an instructor.