Robert Eckels

Robert was born in farm country in Illinois. He worked with his family as a kid, and then went into the military during WWII.  He then went to college at University of Illinois Champlain and met Lucille Ginsberg, his wife. He earned a Bachelor's degree in Fine Art, and she earned a Bachelor's degree in Political Science. After graduating, they traveled abroad, starting by spending a year studying at London School of Art where he practiced painting and sculpting. His wife, Lucille studied under a Fulbright scholarship at the London School of Economics. When they returned to the US,  Bob became an art professor, and contributed largely to the Mid-centery movement of pottery away from utilitarian forms to more artistic and expressive forms. He worked at colleges in New Mexico, North Carolina, and Virginia until he was hired by Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin to start their Art Department.  He established the Eckels Pottery studio in Ashland, Wisconsin,  and later moved it north to Bayfield in 1960.