1934 Gene Kloss Snow and Adobe Etching
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GUEST:
I have been a thrifter since I was 15 years old, and I'm considerably older than that now. I went to a thrift store one afternoon, one blazing-hot afternoon, and I found this picture of snow, and it called me.
APPRAISER:
It called you and it cooled you.
GUEST:
It called and cooled me.
APPRAISER:
(chuckles)
GUEST:
And it's still doing that.
APPRAISER:
And you know who made it?
GUEST:
Uh, Gene Kloss, a woman who lived in San Francisco and she lived in Taos. And this is clearly something that's from New Mexico.
APPRAISER:
So Gene Kloss was a Bay Area artist, and she and her husband first visited New Mexico in 1925. And they loved it so much that while they remained in the Bay Area until 1945, they kept coming back to Taos, where she had a studio set up, and she started making etchings like this in the late 1920s. Now, this one is called "Snow and Adobe," and it dates from 1934. It's a super-scarce etching by Kloss. It's known in only 35 impressions, and I have never found another impression up at auction. She signed it in pencil, lower right, and titled it lower left in pencil.
GUEST:
Well, we're standing in the heat, and it still has that cooling feeling. And I think the thing that was so compelling was the light.
APPRAISER:
Now, she had a, a career that spanned more than six decades, and she made more than 600 etchings. But this is certainly in the top five. So one dollar at the thrift store on a very hot...
GUEST:
One dollar on a hot day, and I debated whether or not to buy it. It was in this cheap little metal frame, and when I took it out, it was backed by a piece of cardboard, and it had Scotch tape on it. So I took it to, um, a gallery in Santa Fe to find out, "D... Can you tell me who can clean this for me?" And when I went to pick it up, the gallery guys offered me $2,000 for it. And I really felt that this was a gift, how sometimes things are just given to you...
APPRAISER:
Sure.
GUEST:
...because that's where you are and that's what you need. And that's where I was, and that's what I needed.
APPRAISER:
So you said, "No, I'm not taking it."
GUEST:
And I said, "No, thank you so much."
APPRAISER:
Yes.
GUEST:
"I'll keep it. I think I'm supposed to take care of this." And that was 30-ish years ago?
APPRAISER:
Okay.
GUEST:
Yeah.
APPRAISER:
Would you, would you guess on what its value is today?
GUEST:
He offered me $2,000 for it, and at that time, Ms. Kloss was alive. It's got to have doubled since she's past, but beyond that, I have no clue.
APPRAISER:
I would put a replacement or insurance value on this work at $10,000.
GUEST:
One dollar? $10,000? This is working for me because I love it. It's not going anywhere. Oh, thank you.
APPRAISER:
Thank you.
GUEST:
Oh, that's amazing. $10,000. Seriously, I love this.
APPRAISER:
Uh... (laughs)
GUEST:
Thank you, it's far beyond my wildest concept.
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