Eugeniusz Zak was born to Jewish family in Mogilno, Minsk Governorate (nowadays Belarus). As a boy he moved to Warsaw, where he graduated from a non-classical secondary school. In 1902, he left for Paris to undertake studies, first at the École des Beaux-Arts in the studio of the aged master of academism Jean-Léon Gérôme, and then at Académie Colarossi in the studio of Albert Besnard. In 1903, he traveled to Italy and toward the end of the year to Munich, where he entered a private school run by the Slovenian Anton Ažbe.