Geneve Rixford Sargeant Biography

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Geneve Rixford Sargeant (1868 - 1957) Geneve Rixford was born in 1868 in San Francisco, California. When she graduated from high school she began Saturday classes at the San Francisco Art Association in 1888, at the time when Emil Carlsen, the landscape painter, was its director. When Carlsen left the Art Association in 1889 to teach at the San Francisco Art Students League, Geneve followed him. She continued to study there for four months. In 1890 she traveled to Phoenix, Arizona, where she met her future husband Winthrop Webster Sargeant. She continued to travel with her parents and made friends with many prominent artists introduced to her through Emil Carlsen. 

She returned to San Francisco in 1891 where she opened a studio on Montgomery Street. She continued painting until her marriage to Mr. Sargeant in 1893. The couple lived in Chicago, Illinois, for four years before relocating to Monterey, California, in 1904. The Sargeants managed an orange ranch near Los Angeles in 1906 and Geneve was able to continue painting and raise her children there. When the ranch was sold they moved back to San Francisco where Geneve gave her first solo-exhibition of her California landscapes at the Sketch Club Rooms. She was one of the founding members of the Sketch Club and she became director of the San Francisco Art Association when it joined with the Sketch Club in 1915. 

In 1923 the family moved to Paris, France for five years. In Paris Geneve took composition from Andre LHote and her sons attended the Paris Conservatory of Music. She returned to San Francisco in 1927 after the death of her husband in Paris. 

She exhibited locally and won first prize in the San Francisco Art Associations Annual Exhibition in 1927. Geneve Sargeant was an active member of the San Francisco art community until her death in Santa Clara County in 1957.