BIOGRAPHY
	1949 Francis ECK was born in the country village of Dannemarie, Alsace, where the forests and rivers were his playground. Summer holidays at the port of Dunkirk were spent painting watecolours of boats in the harbour - the beginning of his fascination for the sea. He obtained a Diploma in Physical Education and Sport, enabling him to live and teach in Alsace.
	1980 Francis had his first one-man show in the Hôtel de Ville in Altkirch, Alsace, with another the following year. Between 1982 and 1985 he exhibited at the Salon Europ’Art in Chalon, Vittel and Nantes, winning the Grand Prix Rubens and three honourable mentions, in the Salon de Monaco, in the Contemporary Art Center in both Genova and Paris.
	1986 During this period he used his palette knife more and more and his work moved to abstraction. In 1986, looking for new horizons, he found them in the West Indies, teaching in St. Barthélemy, still exhibiting in France and still now, in the islands. Such was the interest in his work that in 1990 he decided to give up teaching to paint full time.
	1993 By 1993 he had shown in Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Martin, Paris and Belgium where he won the Gold Medal for his painting «Saison de la Vie». Also, work shown at Art Expo in New York prompted the making of a film about Francis by Pierre Sagot.
	1994 Francis was invited to present an exhibition at the Yomenanohana Museum in Tokyo, the first for any western artist. Francis and his wife Monika spent many fascinating months in Japan during the exhibition period. The work was very well received, with sales of fourty-two canvasses from the sixty shown and with a coverage on NHK National TV.
	1995 A monograph about the artist, with text by Gerard Xuriguera was published by Editions Garnier Nocera, Paris. Francis is included in the forthcoming Dictionary of three Centuries of French Marine Painters.
	1996 - 1999 Another important encounter, in Europ’Art Genova : Pierre J. Marczell, art critique and referent journalist for the Cannes festival, has shown great interest in Eck’s work, and published an article about him in a Swiss Magazine.He explained how Eck’s work could be understood in the perspective of Nicolas de Staël legacy. Also Pierre J. Marczell was present at Eck’s exhibition in Moutiers, where he reads a personnel announcement to the public in order to introduce the artist and inaugurate the exhibition. Eck keeps on proceeding in his pictural career, in a way, which he qualifies «transrealistic», trying to reach closer to the Genesis of the Universe.
	2000 to now March 2000, a great visit, French President Jacques Chirac, during his official visit in Gwadeloup ; Francis' oil painting tittled "Not everything is blue..." joigned President's Art Collection. Then, in august, Francis ECK's encounters a great success in Beijing - China, during the biggest Asian Art Fair. Francis received for his works the 1st painting prize from the Cultural Chinese Minister. His numerous travels to Asia - Beiging, Shanghai, Hong-kong - trough him in a new pictorial dimension, less partioning, with a new unity of the three elements - light, material and time -. Back from Hong-kong, Francis and Monika went to Iceland invited by an Art lover. He came bach fascinated by this virgin country, an a new pictorial enthusiasm widen his palette of colors and diversify his compositions. Although triumphant in its inexorable movement and full of flaws and textures, Francis Eck's world of Nature remains a milieu of harmony and calm, a "horizon of the senses," a world of possibilities, a world where modem man can actively and independently blossom.