Born in New York City, Peter Dechar is an American Postwar & Contemporary painter best known for his serial still lifes of pear subjects, both at close range and from a distance. His fruit suggests the curves of the human body. Dechar first studied electrical engineering at Pratt Institute in 1960 and 1961 and then spent two years working on a chartered schooner, returning to painting in 1963 in Cologne, Germany. Two years later, he settled in New York City.