Presidio View is an etching created in 1926 by American artist Gene Kloss. The reference for this work is Sanchez/Kloss 95. It is pencil signed and titled and was printed by the artist on ivory RJ Head & Company laid paper. This etching was never editioned and is known in proofs only. The platemark measures 5-15/16 x 4-15/16 inches.
This is a view of San Francisco Bay from a hill in the Presidio, the former San Francisco military base which is now part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The roofs of the barracks are visible at the bottom of the hill and in the distance is the octagonal rotunda of the Palace of Fine Arts, built for the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition. Out in the bay Alcatraz Prison (known as The Rock) is visible at right.
Gene Kloss, painter and printmaker, was born Alice Geneva Glasier on 27 July 1903 in Oakland, California. She graduated with honors from the University of California Berkeley in 1924. During her last semester in UC Berkeley, Kloss participated in seminar given by Perham Nahl and with his encouragement she made her first etching. She further her studies for another two years attending classes at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco and the California School of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California.
In 1925, she wed the poet Phillips Kloss and they visited Taos, New Mexico for the first time. Also, this year, she stopped using her first name, shortened her middle name to Gene, and used her husband’s surname. In de-feminizing her name, Gene Kloss’ work was selected for exhibitions without the prejudicial, sexist discrimination encountered by women in all fields.
Gene and Phillips divided their year between Berkeley, California and Taos, New Mexico until they settled permanently in Taos in 1953. During the Depression Kloss made prints for the PWAP and WPA/FAP in New Mexico but during the World War II the Klosses spent most of their time in Berkeley, where Phillips worked in a shipyard. After the war, they began building their home near Taos.
Kloss was a member of and exhibited with the Society of American Etchers, the Chicago Society of Etchers, the California Society of Etchers, the Carmel Art Association, the Prairie Print Makers, the New Mexico Art League, and the Philadelphia Watercolor Club. In 1950, Gene was elected an Associate Member of the National Academy of Design and, in 1972, she was elevated to a National Academician.
Kloss received numerous honors for her prints and repositories of her work include the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; the Dallas Museum of Art, Texas; the Denver Art Museum, Colorado; the Oakland Museum of California; the New York Public Library and the Metropolitan Museum, New York; the San Francisco Museums of Fine Arts, California; the New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe; and the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
Gene Kloss died in Taos, New Mexico on 24 June 1996.
