Frank Eugene

Frank Eugene ( born September 19, 1865 in New York; † December 16, 1936 in Munich, actually Frank Eugene Smith ) was a US-amerikanischer/deutscher photographer, painter and etcher. Eugene is counted among the pictorialists and is considered an important representative of the artistic photography of the fin de siècle.

Life and work

Eugene studied in 1886 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. During his studies he became interested in photography for the media. In 1889 he had his first solo exhibition at the Camera Club of Alfred Stieglitz. Critics called his paintings as " unfotografische photographs". In 1894 he completed his studies and returned to New York, where he worked as a set designer and portrait painter for several years, specializing in the representation of known theater actor. From 1900 he was back in Germany and became involved in the art photography. In 1902 he founded, together with Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen, the Photo-Secession in New York.

In 1906, Eugene was finally settled in Germany, because he became recognized for its art nouveau painting here; he took in the same year the German citizenship. As of 1907, Eugene taught at the Training and Research Institute for Photography in Munich and gave lectures on the Pictorialist Photography. That same year, Eugene, Stieglitz, Steichen and Heinrich Kühn met in order to achieve an adaptation of the German art photographers at the American guidelines. In 1913 he founded at the Academy of Graphic Arts and Printing Arts in Leipzig faculty of artistic photography and where he continued his teaching. This chair, which was created specifically for Eugene, the first of its kind was the world.

Work

Became internationally known Eugene. Due to its 1904-1910 published over the years in the photography magazine Camera Work heliogravures, where he was based on the romanticized style of painting Eugene worked to his photographic negatives with an etching needle, increasing the graphical nature of the trigger. He gave his work like a sensual aspect, reminiscent of nude studies. Major works in this manner are Adam and Eve (1898 ) and The Horse ( 1901).

Eugene's works are in the Alfred Stieglitz Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Arts and Crafts and Prenten Cabinet Leiden Rijks University and in other museums to see the Hamburg Museum.