Eugene Karlin was born Kenosha, Wisconsin on December 15, 1918. As a youngster he was able to take art lessons at the Jane Addams Hull House in Chicago.  He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Art Students League in New York and the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center.  He taught in New York at the Parsons School of Design, Pratt Institute, Cooper Union, the School of Visual Arts and the Workshop School of Advertising and Editorial Art.

Karlin began his career as a staff illustrator at Fortune between 1943 and 1945 and later worked with Esquire, Look, New Republic, Sports Illustrated, Town & Country, Seventeen, Architectural Forum and Playboy. He also did numerous drawings for books, designed record covers for RCA and Columbia, and created artworks of landscapes and figurative subjects that combined realism and abstraction.

In addition to his pen and pencil sketches, Karlin created works in tempera and oil, pastels and ceramic. His works have been shown at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Corcoran Gallery, the San Francisco Museum, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Laguna Art Museum.

Eugene Karlin died in Laguna Woods, California on November 20, 2003.