William Beckman was born in 1942 in Maynard, Minnesota. He received a BA from St. Cloud State University in Minnesota and an MA and MFA from the University of Iowa in Iowa City. He renders both detailed figurative paintings as well as beautiful panoramic landscapes, inspired by his family farm in Minnesota where he was born and raised. William Beckman uses a unique method of applying paint to render the figure or landscape, then shaving off layers from the surface with a razor to create a lustrous surface that is not varnished.

His paintings have been selected for an exclusive group show slated for the reopening of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. His work is featured in public collections internationally, including the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington, D.C.), The Museum Moderne Kunst (Vienna, Austria), Flint Institute of Arts (Detroit, MI), The Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh, PA), The Art Institute of Chicago, Columbus Museum of Art (GA), Arkansas Arts Center (Little Rock, AZ), Des Moines Art Center, Milwaukee Art Museum, and Frye Art Museum (Seattle, WA).