Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden

Description

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).