Charles F. Keck's work is a fine example of the California style of watercolors of the 1940's. He attended the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles during the 1930's, studying with Millard Sheets, Phil Dike, and Phil Paradise.

He became a participant in Southern California Scene painting and figured prominently in the California Style Watercolor Movement. He was a member of the California Watercolor Society and the Laguna Beach Art Association.

During World War II, he was drafted into the the Signal Corps. He was stationed in Alaska where he produced a series of Alaskan landscapes and genre paintings of military life.

After World War II, Keck and his wife settled in Los Angeles where he spent the next 36 years teaching and painting. His favored subjects were landscapes punctuated with people from every day life; industrial scenes, scenes of farm life, and scenes of people toiling at their daily labors. His work shows strong compostion with well defined and sometimes somber tones. He always strived to first study his subject and then paint it with feeling.

He used French hand made paper, and mixed his paints with fresco pigment with a binder. In the 1950's, Keck experimented with abstract expressionism, but continued his traditional style he learned so long ago at the Chouinard Art Intstitute.

Source: Biography by Sandy Hunter, http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/5aa/5aa333.htm Sandy Hunter is owner of California Art Gallery in Laguna Beach, CA and specializes in works by Charles F. Keck. http://www.californiaartgallery.com