Chuck Eckart

Charles Eckart (Chuck) was born in Oakland and raised in Yosemite Valley. During the early ‘50s, as a teenager, his devel­oping painter’s eye was tutored by the Yosemite Museum’s collec­tion of works by Thomas Hill, Albert Bier­stadt and Thomas Moran.

With a liberal arts degree from the Univer­sity of the Pacific, he went on to study under Lorser Feit­elson, John Altoon and Louis Danzinger at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles.

During the ‘60s, he became an award-winning Art Director at McCann Erickson, San Fran­cisco. He continued on in the commer­cial art world during the ‘70s and ‘80s as a fine pen and ink free­lance illus­trator. Larry Duke joined him in sharing a large studio on Folsom Street.

In 1980, the children’s book: How The Forest Grew, featuring Eckart’s illus­tra­tions, was published by Green­willow of William Morrow & Co.

Concur­rent with the commer­cial work, Chuck devel­oped his vision and skill in fine art painting. In the early ‘80s, he became a member of the Allan Stone Gallery in New York. Around the same time, his powerful winged figures caught the atten­tion of Charles Camp­bell in San Fran­cisco, who became Chuck’s dealer (along with Paul Thiebaud) for the next 22 years.

Chuck and Alice moved from the City to Point Reyes Station in 1985. This move trig­gered a dramatic shift in his work. Losing interest in the figure as his subject, he became attracted to the land­scape and even­tu­ally found that he did not want to just record nature as observed, but to create purer paint­ings that equal and reflect the complexity and beauty of the natural world. Grad­u­ally his painting became more abstract, and this is the vein he works in today.

Eckart is also an etcher, and since 1966 his prints have paral­leled his painting devel­op­ment. In 2009, he published a collec­tion of 30 orig­inal etch­ings, hand bound and letter­press printed in a very limited edition of 50 copies, enti­tled Midnight Ride.

Further viewing can be seen at Seager Gray Gallery at 108 Throck­morton Ave., Mill Valley for paint­ings and color etch­ings, or online at seagergray​.com. More etch­ings are at Larry Warnock Fine Arts at warnock​fin​earts​.com. Etch­ings can also be seen at R.E.Lewis and Daughter online at relewis​.com.

Click on an image to see a larger view and the gallery.