Hardy Ecke born in Berlin. Educated at the Gutenberg-Grafik-Arts-School in Stuttgart. Animation artist for Stuttgart Filmstudios. Television advertisement artist for Disney/Ehapa-Publisher, Sesame Street and Äffle & Pferdle. Art Director through 1990 for E&S Computergrafic Stuttgart. Artist in oils since 1986 Professional member of art society of Württemberg. Working in his new studio in Coos Bay Oregon USA. About the Art  (Summary) "What first attracts the eye is that Ecke presents the people in his paintings with clear contours and that they are distinguished from each other by powerful contrasts of colour. In this way, clean pictorial spaces are created which are reminiscent of the world of comics and commercial graphics, from which Ecke, after all, has only recently taken his leave. The loose apparel containing the full and rounded shapes looks somewhat like confirmation clothes worn for the first time. Ecke's figures present a picture of humanity which impresses the observer as being a child's view. The people portrayed display a soft anxiousness, thus making them appear harmless and friendly in a sympathetic way. A bit of Parsifal and a bit of Don Quixote, he holds firmly to his art which acts as a medium of clarification and shows the ambition of leading people out of their self-incurred stupidity. Whether he succeeds is a question Ecke has to submit to and the answer can only come from the public. That he uses pictorial means to stimulate understanding and produce a feeling of willingness to help on both sides, demonstrates a very human characteristic of his art. One feels one would like to help the characters in his pictures in some way. They need our help just as we need theirs. Ecke has an elegant and penetrating way of going about it and no-one can say that he left an exhibition of Ecke´s work just as he had come to it. The observer is not left unaffected, an effect ensured by the artist´s work to the best of his knowledge and ability." Prof. Dr. Helge Bathelt, M.A. For more detailed version of this summary, click here