Adam and Eve

Born in New York to immigrant parents, Eugene was one of many young German-Americans to travel to Munich to study at the Royal Bavarian Academy of Arts. Alfred Stieglitz and the influential art critic Sadakichi Hartmann promoted Eugene’s Pictorialist photographs in exhibitions and publications such as Camera Work, where this photograph appeared in 1910. Eugene’s interest in a variety of artistic media is seen in the bold manipulation of his negatives. He used paintbrushes, etching needles, and pencils to rework his compositions, thus proclaiming their status as art. This photogravure—a print created from a photomechanically etched copper plate—depicts a classic subject from the annals of art history, the deep chiaroscuro and scratched surface suggesting Adam and Eve after the fall.