ECKMANN, Otto
German designer, illustrator and painter. He studied at the Kunst- und Gewerbeschule in Nuremberg and from 1885 attended the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich. His early paintings were naturalistic landscapes, but around 1890, he shifted towards Symbolism. In 1894, he decided to devote himself to the decorative arts. He studied the Japanese woodcut collection at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg. Using traditional Japanese techniques, he began producing his own woodcut designs in 1895. Eckmann’s woodcuts, as well as ornamental borders, vignettes, bookplates and other graphic designs, were illustrated in such periodicals as Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, Jugend and Pan. In 1899-1900, he collaborated with Karl Klingspor at Rudhardsche Schriftgiesserei, Offenbach, to develop a new typeface named Eckmann.
Eckmann’s Art Nouveau designs are characterized by strong colours, undulating lines, the tense interplay between surface and decoration, and a formal vocabulary abstracted from nature. He worked alongside manufacturers to gain a thorough knowledge of materials, methods and technical processes involved in shaping his designs. Driven by creative frenzy and exacting discipline, he expanded his repertory as a craftsman, designing stained glass, ceramics, furniture and metalwork.
In the 1890s, Eckmann was one of several artists, including Hermann Obrist, Richard Riemerschmid and August Endell, who exhibited in two rooms of modern decorative arts at the Munich Glaspalast exhibition of 1897. Eckmann was especially praised for such lighting fixtures as the wrought-iron ‘Narcissus’ candlestick (1896-97; Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg), manufactured by Josef Zimmermann & Co., Munich. Eckmann designed carpets and tapestries for such firms as H. Engelhard of Mannheim and the Smyrna-Teppich-Fabrik, Berlin. His most famous tapestry, Five Swans (1896-07, of which approximately 100 examples were woven, was produced at the Scherrebek tapestry workshops in Schleswig-Holstein (now Skærbaek, Denmark).
In 1897 Eckmann was appointed Professor of Ornamental Painting at the Königliche Kunstgewerbemuseum in Berlin. His designs became more stylized and abstract, and shortly before his death from tuberculosis in 1902, he returned to landscape painting. He is also remembered through Lovis Corinth’s portrait of him (1897; Kunsthalle, Hamburg).
