View Paintings by E. I. Couse

Eanger Irving Couse, The Water Jug, Oil on Canvas, 20.25" x 24.25"

Biography Eanger Irving Couse

E. I. Couse was, perhaps, the most famous of the members of the Taos Society of Artists during the period of active production from the group. A highly specialized artist with a rigorous academic background, E. I. Couse painted serious figurative scenes of the Indians of Taos Pueblo, usually crouching and often fire-lit.

Eanger Irving Couse, Landscape, Oil on Canvas Board, Circa 1920, 4" x 5"

Born in Saginaw, Michigan in 1866, E. I. Couse studied briefly at the Chicago Art Institute, spending hard-earned house painting money on his courses. After three months, (the most he could afford) Couse returned to Saginaw to earn enough money to enroll in the National Academy of Design in New York City. He received an award from the Academy in every one of the three years he studied there and, in 1887, spurred on by his success at student exhibitions, he enrolled in the Academie Julien in Paris.

Eanger Irving Couse, Couse's Backyard, Oil on Panel, 6" x 5"

In Paris, E. I. Couse studied under Adolphe Bouguereau and Robert Fleury, and the work he produced garnered awards in every student exhibition he entered. It was in Paris that Couse first connected with two individuals who would be central to his life and development; the first was his future wife, Virginia Walker, and the second his mentor and the man who first brought Taos to his attention, Joseph Henry Sharp. Sharp was the central figure in organizing the Taos Society of Artists. It was from Sharp that E. I. Couse, Ernest Blumenschein and Bert Geer Phillips first learned about Taos, and he is widely considered the spiritual leader of the Taos Founders.

Eanger Irving Couse, Landscape - Hayfields, Oil on Canvas, 9" x 12"

After studying at L’Ecole Des Beaux Arts, E. I. Couse continued to live and work in France, painting French countryside scenes that proved eminently saleable in Europe and the United States. He and Alice had their first son, Kibbey, in the coastal village of Etaples in 1894. E. I. Couse also began painting portraits, which married his established academic style to the study and documentation of the human form. He kept a studio in New York that he occupied only during the winter exhibition season, and successfully sold a great number of paintings.

Eanger Irving Couse, Moonlight Spring, Oil on Board, 9" x 12"

In 1897, the Couse family moved to Oregon, just south of Alice’s childhood home, onto a ranch owned by her family. Couse built a studio and painted the Klikitat Indians of the area. Four years later, he moved to New York City permanently, drawing upon his sketches and paintings of the Northwest Indians to create Native American-themed works that proved quite popular with New York buyers. After the exhibition season, without any pressing engagements, E. I. Couse allowed himself to be persuaded to travel to Taos to visit Phillips and Blumenschein. He rented a house next door to Phillips’ studio and began painted the people of the Taos Pueblo. He would spend every summer between 1902 and 1926 there, eventually establishing permanent residence there in 1927.

Eanger Irving Couse, Couse's House, Oil on Canvas Board, Circa 1910, 9.5" x 11.5"

E. I. Couse used the same two individuals, Ben Lujan and Geronimo Gomez, as the subjects for the majority of his paintings. Though the lines and colors of Couse’s work are quite smooth, it is possible to see Lujan and Gomez age over time. Usually they are kneeling or squatting, engaged in a quotidian task such as preparing food or crafts, and are often lit by firelight. In the daylight scenes, Couse used a soothing palette and a softness of tone and detail to create peaceful scenes of the natives’ relationship with nature. Though E. I. Couse’s pieces are less ethnographically accurate than some of his contemporaries, his handling of his subjects is enormously generous and unforced, with a relaxed quality that impresses in its ability to convey concentration or rest with very little facial or muscular detail.

Eanger Irving Couse, Aspen, Oil on Canvas Board, 9" x 11"

In 1914, E. I. Couse painted his first piece for the Santa Fe Railway. Over the rest of his life, he would paint twenty-two canvases for the railway, usually included in their yearly calendar. Only two of the pieces were commissioned; the rest were chosen by the railway out of Couse’s stock of existing work.

E.I. Couse died in 1936 a successful and famous painter, whose gift to western art was significant and who is still recognized today as a major figure in the development of a significant school of American peinture.

Eanger Irving Couse, Taos Landscape, Oil on Board, Circa 1920, 6" x 5"

Works by Eanger Irving Couse can be seen in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of the Smithsonian Institute, the Dallas Museum of Fine Art, the Detriot Institute of Art, the Milwaukee Art Center, the Toledo Museum of Art, the Philbrook Art Center, the Gilcrease Institute of Art, the Museum of New Mexico, the Anschutz Collection, the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indian & Western Art, and the Butler Institute of American Art.

Museum Collections

Stark Museum of Art

Amon Carter Museum

Arizona State University Art Museum

Ball State University Museum of Art

Butler Institute of American Art

C.M. Russell Museum

Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center

Denver Art Museum

Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art

El Paso Museum of Art

Gilcrease Museum

Joslyn Art Museum

Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri-Columbia

Museum of Art at Brigham Young University

Museum of New Mexico

Museum of The Southwest

National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum

Phoenix Art Museum

Portland Art Museum

Reading Public Museum

Richmond Art Museum

Rockwell Museum of Western Art

San Diego Museum of Art

Sangre De Cristo Arts Center

Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery

Smithsonian American Art Museum

The Detroit Institute of Arts

The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art

The Harwood Museum of Art

The Hickory Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Philbrook Museum of Art, Inc.

University of Wyoming Art Museum

Westervelt-Warner Museum Of American Art

Woolaroc Museum

Worcester Art Museum

Return to Paintings E. I. Couse

Eanger Irving Couse, Tree Trunk, Oil on Board, Circa 1910, 7" x 9"