Herlinde Spahr was born in Antwerp, Belgium and came to California in 1977 as a graduate student in Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley. Parallel with her studies, she pursued her interests in the visual arts, especially stone lithography. At the completion of her studies, she had become a master printer and exhibiting artist which led her to to forgo an academic career and set up her studio, Lithium Press. With the lithographic stones becoming too heavy to handle, Spahr began executing her images on Formica, durable panels with a grain and hardness similar to limestone, thereby fusing printmaking and painting techniques. Spahr's work is included in 60 Years of American Prints, 1947-2007 and in The Best of Printmaking. An International Collection, 1997. The Monterey Museum of Art featured her large format work in a one person exhibition in 2021, entitled The Precipice Within.