E. Irving Couse

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Eanger Irving Couse (1866-1936) was an artist and founding member of the Taos artists colony in Taos, New Mexico. Couse was born in Saginaw, Michigan, where he first started drawing the Chippewa Indians who lived nearby. Couse attended the Art Institute of Chicago, and the National Academy of Design, New York. He left for Paris to study at the École des Beaux-Arts and Académie Julian under Bouguereau. He lived in France 10 years, where he painted charming scenes of the Normandy coast. After his return to America he devoted himself to depicting the life and habits of the Taos Indians, a pueblo tribe in New Mexico. He reveals the poetical and philosophical rather than the savage and warlike side of the Indians, and his skillfully executed pictures are full of sentiment. Among those in public galleries are "Elkfoot" (National Gallery, Washington); "The Forest Camp" (Brooklyn Museum); "The Tom-Tom Maker" (Lotos Club, New York); "Medicine Fires" (Montclair Gallery, New Jersey); "Shapanagons, a Chippewa Chief" (Detroit Museum). He was elected to the National Academy of design in 1911.[1] In 1912 when the Taos Society of Artists was formed, Couse was elected its first President.

[edit] Later works

"Mending the War Bonnet"
"Making Pottery" (awarded the Carnegie prize)
"Rushing Water" (1912)
"Twilight, Taos Pueblo" (1913)

During his career, Couse exhibited widely and won numerous awards at: the Paris Salon, the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Academy of Design (Altman prize, 1916), the Salmagundi Club (Isidor prize, 1917), and was awarded the Lippincott prize from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (1921). He received awards from the American Exposition, Buffalo, the Boston Art Club, the Corcoran Gallery and the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco (silver medal, 1915). His works are held in many museums in the United States and around the world.

Couse died in Taos, New Mexico in 1936.

Asked how to say his name, he told The Literary Digest that it rhymed with house. (Charles Earle Funk, What's the Name, Please?, Funk & Wagnalls, 1936.)