A native of Oakland, California, Alice Geneva Glasier attended the University of California at Berkeley. Following her graduation in 1924, she continued her studies at the San Francisco School of Fine Arts. She married poet Phillips Kloss in 1925 and afterward the couple made their first sojourn to the Southwest, including Taos, New Mexico. By 1929 the couple had established a summer residence in Taos, which later became their permanent home.
Largely self-taught as a printmaker, Kloss experimented with various effects. She developed and perfected a technique she called “painting,” now recognized as her own, unique style. Through the direct application of acid onto copper plates with pencils or fine Japanese brushes, Kloss achieved the subtle, painted tones, bright halos, and grades of dark for which she is well known. The mastery of her printmaking won her a place beside Ernest L. Blumenschein and Georgia O’Keeffe in a major Paris exhibition in 1938.
