Waldecker Hoehe 6
83714 Miesbach
Germany

Tel.: 08025/3967
from US: 01149 8025 3967
Fax.: 5468
from US: 01149 8025 5468

Email:
eckhart@antiques-schwab.com

"It was a wonderful experience, driving and stopping at different places along the way - and experiencing the great expanse that is America."

Biography

Although founded in 1964, our tale actually begins in Bavaria in the late 1950s. Eckhart Schwab realized early in life what was to be a vocation and a way of life. He apprenticed three years as an upholsterer and as an interior design decorator. The training included all aspects of drapery, carpeting, wall decorating and Art and Antiques studies. During those years it was customary for young apprentices to leave their homeland for a period of three years to develop their trade as well as observe their profession as practiced in a foreign country.

Our ambitious artisan spent a year working in Sweden. The other two years were spent in the U.S., departing from France on the Queen Elizabeth - destination, New York City.

Soon after his arrival Eckhart obtained work at Ed Golisky's Upholstery Shop in Greenwich, Connecticut. Part of his job was delivering and installing draperies and curtains in some of the more fashionable homes throughout New England and New York State. Entering these stylish homes proved to be a remarkable learning experience for the impressionable young man.

Eckhart was astonished by the high-end and elegant furnishings he noticed in these homes - furniture that you wouldn't find so effortlessly in Europe.

"American art is genuine - it has its own unique distinctions, created from the insights and integrity of the American people," he comments.

Antique German furniture from Eckhart's Shop in Bavaria. www.antiques-schwab.com

Eckhart also experienced another memorable event while traveling across country. For the very first time Eckhart heard Johnny Cash sing. The song was Ring of Fire and it went to number 1 on the charts. "And I've been a fan of country music ever since. I also discovered good American jazz."

It was during these stimulating, as well as influential years, that Eckhart discovered the "real America," and at the same time being so far from home - that he emerged a man. He was 19 at the time.

When Eckhart arrived in Los Angeles he had only $20 - enough to fulfill a dream - to visit Disneyland. He had brought with him to America a German Grundig radio which he was able to sell at a pawn shop enabling Eckhart to survive financially until he landed a job in a factory.

"I remember very well, that sorry day in November 1963, when President Kennedy was assassinated - all those saddened people with tears in their eyes."

"After a few weeks in the factory I moved to Hollywood where I met some wonderful people at the Beverly Hills Lutheran Church. And once again, while I was there, I worked decorating homes full of great antiques, for residents with attractive and tasteful interiors."

Then Eckhart went back home and opened an Antique Shop in the Bavarian Alps.

THIRTY FOUR YEARS LATER Eckhart, now a seasoned antique dealer, embarks on a second trip to the United States ... this time to Brimfield, Massachusetts, the American mecca for antiques.

"Brimfield is the ideal place to make contacts and to learn the American way of conducting an antiques business. My American dealer colleagues have been very helpful."