Edward Leland Kauffer was born on 14 December 1890, in Great Falls, Montana. By 1910 he had moved to San Francisco working as a bookseller and studying art at the California School of Design from 1910 to 1912. At around this time Professor Joseph McKnight of the University of Utah became aware of Kauffer's work, sponsored him and paid to send him to Paris for further study. In gratitude Kauffer took his sponsor's name as a middle name.

Kauffer stopped in Chicago for six months in 1912/1913 and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago.* While there he witnessed the Armory Show, one of the first major exhibitions to introduce the styles of modernism to American viewers. This likely had a major impact on Kauffer, wh...