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 paintin...