Anglo etcher and painter Gene Kloss and husband, Phillips, became so immersed in local culture, she told an essayist, that several people came to check on their safety after they missed a Christmas Eve dance at Santo Domingo Pueblo. That act speaks volumes about the California emigrant’s comfort adjusting from urbane Berkeley to the pastoral Taos of a century ago, as well as to her social preferences. She gravitated toward locals — and Indigenous customs — rather than other artists who also moved to Northern New Mexico from points afar.

Evidence of her embrace of the landscape and pueblo culture abounds in Etched in Memory: Gene Kloss’ Taos, running through May 13 at the Lunder Research Center at Couse-sharp Historic Site. Inspirations for her work are revealed not only in their visuals but also in their titles: Midwinter in the Sangre de Cristos, Clouds at Sunset, Taos Indian Gift Dance.

It’s the first Taos show to focus on Kloss since 1994, says exhibition curator Rachel Daley. It opened Jan. 27 and features more than 60 artworks in assorted mediums — watercolors, drawings, copper plates, and, of course, Kloss’ famed etchings — as well as 20 letters she wrote. About 20 of the pieces are for sale during the exhibition, Daley says, and will be auctioned later if they don’t change hands in the meantime.

“We have basically the full range of production from her lifetime — 60 years of production,” Daley says. “We have a print from 1925 and a print from 1985 — one of her first-known prints and her last-known print. It’s just remarkable to think of an entire lifetime of work, represented in one exhibition.” That last print is titled, You Can Lead a Horse to Water …

The broad timeline ensures all of Kloss’ interests and characteristics are chronicled, Daley says — her development of style and technique, her eye as an artist, her attraction to pueblo life. The exhibition also is a chance to showcase the Lunder Research Center, which houses archival materials documenting early art in Taos, with a focus on female and Indigenous artists. It opened to the public in October 2021.

Etched in Memory likely is the highest density of artwork ever featured at a Couse-sharp exhibition, says Davison Packard Koenig, executive director and curator. It’s not presented in a linear fashion.

“When you walk in, it’s this riot of color,” he says. “And then you see all the black and white [images]. So it’s kind of fun to challenge people’s assumptions of what they expect to see when they will [see it].

Buffalo Dancers at Fiesta, a 30-by-24-inch oil painting lent to Couse-sharp by former Albuquerque resident Stephanie Bennettsmith, serves as a colorful central image, Daley says. It’s surrounded by smaller works.

The wheels began turning on the exhibition when in 2021-2022 the Marilyn and Richard Shoberg family donated 12 prints created by Kloss, Daley says. The intent was for the nonprofit historic site to sell the pieces at a fundraising auction in July.

“Then we received several donations of letters and realized, ‘You know, we really should do an exhibition; Kloss deserves it,’” Koenig says. “There’s not a lot of material on her even though she arguably is one of the most important artists to come out of Taos.”

Kloss, born Alice Geneva Glasier, studied art at the University of California, Berkeley; California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco; and California College of the Arts in Oakland. She married Phillips Kloss in 1925, and the couple spent part of their honeymoon in Taos while touring the Southwest by car.

In addition to other luggage necessary for the long journey, they brought along Kloss’ 60-pound etching press, allowing her to create at their campsite. By modern standards, they were roughing it.

“In 1925, every road in or out of Taos would have been dirt,” Koenig says. “Automobiles were not quite as rugged as they are now. There would only have been a few hotels, and I don’t think they could afford staying in hotels. They were two artists starting out in life together. So it was pretty exciting for them to be traveling from Berkeley, California, and camping out in Taos Canyon.”

By the time Kloss arrived in Taos, a group of artists who found themselves drawn to the rugged area had dubbed itself the Taos Society of Artists. It existed from 1915 to 1927, and Kloss suggests in correspondence from the time it was a sort of an old boys’ club, Daley says.

“I don’t think she felt called to engage in that circle,” she says. “She was incredibly independent and self-reliant, self-motivated. She printed all of her own prints and never had a studio assistant.”

“Independent” had a different social definition a century ago, Koenig adds.

“Taos was such a smaller community that in a lot of ways, people needed each other,” he says. “You were a long ways from anywhere, and you needed the help of your neighbors and friends to get anything done — to repair your house, or you name it. It’s not the insular world we live in now, where everything is accessible through our smartphones, and we don’t need to build real relationships.”

For years, the Klosses traveled back and forth between Berkeley and Taos — an even longer car trip than the current 1,200 miles, given that interstate highways were decades from transforming travel — while caring for their aging parents in California, Daley says. They began living full time in Northern New Mexico in the late 1940s, she adds, later spending five years in Delta, Colorado, before returning to the Land of Enchantment in the mid-1970s.

“She really wants to capture this beauty that, I think, made her more objective and aware of how special and unique it is,” Koenig says. “When you grow up with it, you kind of take it for granted. It’s fascinating that she tries to leave Taos and go to southern Colorado, and not surprisingly, the culture there is completely different than this vibrant culture. So they returned to Taos.”

The exhibition’s scope continued to grow as word got out, Daley says. About an hour after Couse-sharp posted about the show on Facebook, Dennis Tyree of El Prado called saying he had several of the copper plates Kloss created. Each plate served as a “printing matrix” for eventual transfers to softer materials.

The plates are difficult to find, Daley says, because Kloss often destroyed them once she was finished using them — or buried them in her backyard. Tyree and his wife, Kathy, lent four of them for the exhibition. As a result, Daley says, visitors can get a sense of Kloss’ entire plate-to-print artistic process.

“They’re displayed in the show next to the completed prints,” she says. “It really gives a great picture of how these works are produced, because not many people understand printmaking production. It allows us to tell a subtler, more nuanced and richer story.”

Couse-sharp is always looking for donations; those interested can email admin@couse-sharp.org.

“The generation that’s alive today is the last generation that has any direct connection to these artists, which means that a lot of the archival material will disappear over time because the grandkids have no connection,” Koenig says. “We have people donating stuff because they’ve been holding on to it their whole lives, not knowing where it should go.”

Indeed, many longer-tenured residents have shared stories about meeting Kloss when visiting Couse-sharp, Daley says. Kloss died in 1996, a month shy of her 93rd birthday. For perspective on her longevity, Bill Clinton was the last president to serve during her lifetime, while Theodore Roosevelt was the first. New Mexico was nine years away from statehood when she was born in 1903.

“Gene never owned a camera in her life and worked almost exclusively from her memory. When you view the show and see everything on the walls, you’re just blown away by the breadth of her production and the beauty of her mind.”

— Rachel Daley, exhibition curator

The word “memory” features prominently in the exhibition’s title for good reason, Daley says.

“Gene never owned a camera in her life and worked almost exclusively from her memory,” she says. “When you view the show and see everything on the walls, you’re just blown away by the breadth of her production and the beauty of her mind.”