Storm Lifting From The Lake Fork

Although best known for her prints of the American Southwest, Gene Kloss worked in watercolor for the majority of her career. Following her study at the University of California, Berkeley, Kloss visited New Mexico on her honeymoon and took to Taos. She did not relocate there with her husband Phillip until 1960 but visited regularly. She painted this watercolor in Colorado on the Lake Fork, a tributary of the Gunnison River. Kloss exaggerated the size of the mountains and, with the atmospherics of the lifting storm, the watercolor emulates the character of Chinese Song Dynasty landscapes.