Jeremiah Eck is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, a Partner of Eck|MacNeely Architects Inc. located in Boston, author of “The Distinctive Home: A Vision of Timeless Design” and "The Face of Home", and a landscape painter. He is a former lecturer at Harvard University 's Graduate School of Design where he continues to offer Professional Development Seminars on Houses. In addition, he speaks frequently about how architects may better serve their clients, and serves on numerous public service committees.
Eck started his residential practice in Boston with $30 in his pocket and little more then a pencil to draw with. Thirty one years later, the firm is thriving and he has taken up a paintbrush, retreating to his studio to work on this landscape canvases. Almost exclusively, he paints landscapes. “I try not to do houses,” he says. “I tried one summer, but I didn't capture the spirit of the building. But paintings are about light and space, just like architecture.” His favorite painters are the Tonalists, landscape painters whose works were once well known but are now eclipsed by the Hudson River painters, the Impressionists, and others. George Inness was perhaps the most famous Tonalist, but Eck is partial to the work of a fellow Ohio native, Alexander Helwig Wyant, who painted during the last half of the 19 th century. “The Tonalists reacted against the industrialization of their age. They had a heartfelt sympathy with nature, “ he says. Their style wasn't about copying the scene with scientific accuracy or technical flourish; it was about getting at the emotion and spirit of a place. Eck hopes to achieve the same goal with his houses. “The intimate knowledge I gain from painting landscapes is, most of all, an intimate knowledge about the site I paint. That awareness can't help but inform how I site our houses. How else could it be?” he explains. “If you have to understand and express what it feels like in the shadow of a tree, the slope of the hill, or at the edge of a meadow, you learn at the same time much about how the potential house will feel in the same position.”
The South Street Gallery hosted Jeremiah Eck's three week exhibit which opened on October 6, 2006 and you can view the images 'here'.
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