1. FRANK EUGENE, Lady of Charlotte, 1900, 4.5x3.25" Photogravure from Camera Notes Issue 25, April 1909, Printed 1909.

2. FRANK EUGENE, Hortensia, 1910, 6.875x4.938" Photogravure from Camera Work Issue 31, July 1910, Printed c. 1910, Title and gallery registration number inscribed in pencil on mount verso.

3. FRANK EUGENE, Frau Ludwig von Hohlwein, 1910, 4.875x6.938" Photogravure from Camera Work Issue 31, July 1910, Printed c. 1910, Photographer's name, title, gallery registration number, and medium inscribed in pencil on mount verso.

Frank Eugene (1865-1936) was born Frank Eugene Smith on September 12, 1865, in New York, to German immigrant parents. He tended to use his shortened name while living in the United States and his full name when in Germany. He became recognized as both a portrait painter and a pictorial photographer in both countries. After designing carpets in New York for a time as a young adult, Eugene enrolled in Munich's Royal Bavarian Academy of Art in 1886. He studied painting and nature drawing there for eight years and began making photographs during this time, possibly using them as studies for his paintings. He returned to New York in 1894, secured success painting theater personalities and presented a one-person exhibition of them at the Blakeslee Galleries in 1897. 

Eugene was a member of the Camera Club of New York by 1899, when he had a solo show of over seventy-five of his distinctive photographs, mostly nudes and portraits. He performed extensive handwork on his images, usually scratching expressive lines into his negatives and then printing them on tissue platinum paper. A month after the exhibition, the art critic Sadakichi Hartmann wrote an appreciative article on Eugene for the December 1899 issue of the Photographic Times, in which he termed the artist a "painter-photographer," indicative of his dual skills. 

In 1900, Eugene was elected to membership in England's Linked Ring Brotherhood, and F. Holland Day included his work in the important exhibition, the New School of American Photography, seen in London and Paris. He was further honored by Alfred Stieglitz, who featured photogravures by him in both the periodical Camera Notes and the 1901 portfolio, American Pictorial Photography II. In 1902, he became a founding fellow of Stieglitz's exclusive group, the Photo-Secession, when his work was included in its inaugural show at New York's National Arts Club. In 1910, Stieglitz devoted two entire issues of Camera Work to photogravures by Eugene, a major achievement.

Christian A. Peterson Pictorial Photography at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (Christian A. Peterson: Privately printed, 2012). This biography is courtesy and copyright of Christian Peterson and is included here with permission. christianapeterson.com

CREDIT: http://www.luminous-lint.com/app/photographer/Frank__Eugene/A/

Influential in establishing photography as an art form in the United States, Alfred Stieglitz edited and published magazines, organized photographers, operated galleries, and crafted his own creative photographic images. He promoted the photogravure process as an original means of photographic printmaking. Stieglitz had hands-on experience with photogravure and used it extensively for his work and the work of fellow pictorialists. He initially worked at the Photochrome Engraving Company New York, where he gained intimate knowledge of photogravure and other printing processes. In 1897 Stieglitz issued Picturesque Bits Of New York And Other Studies, a portfolio of his own large-format gravures, for which he personally made the film positives for plate making. At this time, he marketed his individual photogravures as collectible, original works of art, numbering, signing, and printing them in limited editions. Stieglitz used the photogravure process for most of the illustrations in his groundbreaking periodicals, Camera Notes (1897-1903) and Camera Work (1903-1917). The photogravures in these journals, all personally approved by Stieglitz, enabled a larger audience to experience the artful qualities of photography. He was so confident of the quality of these gravures that he occasionally sent them to be displayed at international exhibitions of artistic photography.

Credit: https://photogravure.com/key-figure/alfred-stieglitz/

1. Excellent. Image transference on mount verso.
2. Excellent. Image transference on mount verso.
3. Excellent. Minor wear. Light staining. Image transference on mount verso.