Charles Mahoney:
Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden
Unmounted (ref: 9845)

Pen and ink, wash and colour on paper

Tags: Charles Mahoney pen and ink flowers Garden illustration men painted en plein air religion trees women

Provenance: The Artist's Studio

Mahoney’s first depiction of Adam and Eve appears to date to the beginning of his relationship with Evelyn Dunbar in the mid 1930s; references to “Charlie and Eve” occur in their correspondence. The idea of the Garden of Eden encapsulated the feelings of both about plants and nature, a passion nourished by frequent trips to Kew Gardens. Mahoney delighted in depicting different points in the narrative (The Garden, The Temptation, The Expulsion) and the subject remained a recurrent theme right through to his last decorative panel, The Muses, in which elements of his vision of paradise gardens combine to form a remarkable panorama (see cat. no. 129).