The avant- garde Viennese Secession Group, including Gustav Klimt and Josef Hoffmann rebelled against the traditional forms of art and methods and was a group that highly influenced the work of Gertrude Klaris. The poverty and social upheaveal of the turn of the century is what inspired these artists, and was a climate that Klaris did much of her work in. However, Klaris was a member of the upper class and as a result attended very elite schools. She had little support from her family to paint, but her passion forced her to pursue a career in art.
She was awarded a scholarship to Vienna's Graphic Institute by 1918. Klaris' early drawings, especially her portraiture show evidence of her tradition training, but by 1920 she began to develop her own blend of symbolism and style. While at the academy Klaris entered a contest to design windows of the Trapppist monastery and won. Her career was extensive even being offered a position to design for Tiffany in New York, though she declined. She painted and exhibited her work in the United States and Europe until she struggled in her older age with blindness. She died in 1977 in Santa Barbara California.
