The Enciclopèdia d'Eivissa i Formentera says about Erwin Bechtold: 

Following the family tradition, he carries out studies of typographic composition and printing. In 1947, he began his artistic work with the creation of rigidly built paintings and dedicated himself to wood engraving. In 1950 he travelled to Paris, where he stayed for a while as a guest pupil of the artist Fernand Léger. At the end of the same year he moved to Barcelona, where he decided to settle down. During his stay in this city, he establishes contact with the members of the group Dau al Set (Juan Eduardo Cirlot, Antoni Tàpies, Joan Ponç, etc.).

In 1956, on the initiative of Club 59 (at that time, a clandestine cultural movement), he held his first solo exhibition in Spain at the Sala Gaspar in Barcelona. He carried out the interior design work for the Áncora and Delfín bookshops. He exhibits in the Buchholz gallery in Madrid, which allows him to relate to the artists of the El Paso group. In 1957 she returns to Germany, where she takes part in the exhibition Eine neue Richtung in der Malerei (A New Direction in Painting) at the Kunsthalle in Manheim; for the first time, she meets the German painters of her generation.

In 1958, he settled definitively in Ibiza, where he first arrived in 1954. He acquires a farmhouse in Sant Carles, which becomes his workplace. Although he lived in Ibiza, he continued his relations with Barcelona and other artistic centres in Europe. The following year he took part in the foundation of the "Ibiza 59" Group, together with the artists Erwin Broner, Hans LAAB, Katya Meirowsky, Bob Mumford, Egon Neubauer, Antonio Ruiz, Bertil Sjöberg and Heinz TROKA. The group must be situated at a time when many artistic groups appeared in the state, but, unlike many of these, the group "Ibiza 59" did not have an ideological or creative manifesto, but its main purpose was an exhibition, as established in the founding document by which the components committed themselves to holding individual and collective exhibitions in the El Corsario gallery. The group was dissolved in 1964.

In 1966, he gave a series of lectures at various art academies in Great Britain under the title Contraste and tension. In the same year, he began to collaborate with the Syn group, to which the artists Bernd Berner, Rolf-Gunter Dienst, Klaus Jürgen-Fischer and Eduard Micus also belong. The group's ideology was based on a return to autonomous art as opposed to consumer or denotative art.

In 1979, he created the Monosèrie, a painting and sound installation that was first presented at the Miró Foundation in Barcelona and, a year later, the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum in Ludwigshafen. This installation consisted of twelve rectangular tables of identical dimensions, each of which appeared with a thick brushstroke that changed slightly in each case. The spectator had to be attentive to discover the differences. In 1980, he designed the façades of the Reiss Museum in Manheim. Among the prizes and recognitions that Erwin Bechtold has received are the Sitges Salon Prize (1959), the Joan Miró Prize (1973 mention) and the Prize of the 6th Ibiza Biennial.

For his graphic work, he has received the Filograf Prize (1955) and the Distinction of the Book Institute (1956). For his work as an interior designer, he was awarded the FAD Prize (1961). In 1962, he was elected member of the DEUSTCH Künstlerbund and, in 1983, also member of the Akademie der Künste in Manheim. In 1990, he was awarded the honorary title of Professor of the Land Baden-Württemberg. His paintings can be found in museums and collections, both public and private, all over the world. Erwin Bechtold's work has been divided into five creative stages by scholars and experts in the artist's work.

Between 1955 and 1963, his informalist stage is based on the expressiveness of matter. The first works of this period are characterized using grattage and stains as essential elements within the compositions. Rarely can we speak of regular geometric compositional schemes. The colours used are light and contrast with dark greys. Among the last works of this period, Bechtold makes a series of paintings in which the intention is observed to conjugate very purified anatomical elements to each other.

After the end of his material phase, Bechtold's work delves into geometry, giving rise to a new stage that encompasses a chronological period between 1964 and 1971. This new period is characterized by the presence of organic forms. These are paintings in which white backgrounds dominate, with brightly coloured ribbons running along the margins of the canvas. Within this stage, he made the Fingerdinger series, works made on a symmetrical grid where the organic forms are placed. 

From 1972 to 1978, the series he produces revolve around the margin and the centre, which become the main theme of his paintings. Between 1979 and 1985, the theme of the works, which participate in the same compositional restrictions of the other stages, will be the angulation of the circle. Angle / surface / space is the name of the series he has produced over the last few years, characterised by the large dimensions of the works that compose it.