Man and Woman, Kneeling, 1889

George Minne acquired his greatest renown with his kneeling youths. Man and Woman Kneeling, also known as Adam and Eve, is the first example of a series of kneeling figures. Minne had his group of statues executed in plaster, granite and wood. In the Ghent copy, the seams in the mould have not been smoothed away, something that happens often in Minne’s work. Typical of Minne’s earliest images are the small format and the frailty of the slender, introverted figures.