Printmaker and painter Eva Maria Marcus was born in Tilsit, Lithuania (now Sovetsk, Russia) in 1889. Until very recently, her life and career were mostly shrouded in mystery as much of her work was lost during World War II. Despite being a practicing Christian living in Berlin at the time, as an artist of Jewish heritage, her public presence was stifled and her professional career derailed when the Nazi regime was installed. 

What has been uncovered thus far is limited. She was a student at the Berlin Museum of Decorative Arts (now the University of the Arts) from 1913 to 1917. There, she studied alongside fellow students Georg Grosz and Hannah Höch under renowned artists Emil Orlik and Lovis Corinth. A painting recently sold from a private collection in Berlin depicts the Val di Sol and Brenta Peaks in Trentino, Italy, suggesting that she traveled abroad to study. She was a member of the Association of Berlin Woman Artists 1867, known by its German initials "VdBK 1867." However, with the rise of the Third Reich, Marcus was banned from exhibiting in Germany despite her efforts to prove her familial lineage through documents kept at the University. She was sent to a concentration camp for a time and was expelled from the association as a result. She began working in woodcut again by 1946, but only after relocating to Northwest Germany where she was accepted into the Association of Visual Artists as an "Eastern refugee." 

As interest in Marcus's work experienced a revival in the 2020s, a collection of seven of her color woodcuts was found in archives in Sweden, where she appears to have spent some time after her release from the concentration camp. Upon her death in 1970, she decreed that her "inheritance should be used to support older, needy Berlin women artists" through the Eva Maria Marcus Foundation (Cornelia Renz, kunst-mentoring.org).  

In 2025, an exhibition honoring Marcus' life and work was held at the VdBK 1867. "Past Present Future II" was organized by researcher Cornelia Renz and also showcased the work of Jewish artist Gertude Köhler, herself a recipient of Marcus' scholarships. Marcus' work is included in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York