Charles Eckart

Many years ago, I was lucky enough to get on the Christmas card list of well-known bay area artist, Charles Eckart. Every year I would receive the etching of that year and each one is a treasure that I have displayed in my home. I am delighted that Charles has chosen (I believe with the encouragement of his wife Alice) to publish the etchings in this elegant manner. I brought the book to the Codex International Art Exposition this year and it was purchased by the Stanford Special Collections Library.

Here is the text from the Prospectus:

Midnight Ride is an exquisitely bound book of etchings by Charles Eckart, a long-standing Bay Area painter with an exhibition history that goes back to the late 1960’s. The etchings have been selected from a larger group of images that were created as Christmas cards for family and friends over the past 48 years.  The cards were intended as gifts of small pieces of fine art. The finely drawn images are varied, embracing the season’s merriment and bounty, landscapes close to home, still lifes, and other images related to the artist’s painting development.

Each book contains 30 original etchings created and printed on white BFK Rives paper by the artist on a Griffin press in his studio in Point Reyes Station, CA. The book was designed in collaboration with and the text printed letterpress by Alan Hillesheim of Digger Pine Press in Oakland, CA. The page size is 10-1/2 x 13 inches allowing generous margins around each etching. The text is set in 14-point Palatino and the title face is Zapfino.

The book was bound by John DeMerritt in Emeryville, CA. The book was printed in single sheets, which are stubbed, tipped together and then sewn in four-page signatures. Glassine interleaving has been tipped in at the gutter to protect the fragile surface of each etching. The book is covered with a deep green silk and rayon Japanese bookcloth. The endsheets are Canford Guardsman Red. The slipcase is covered with an Italian natural finish cotton/linen bookcloth. The title is stamped with a metallic foil onto the cover and spine.