Native American Painter and Taos Founder Artist E I Couse: His Life Story and Artwork

Educational Video on E.I. Couse one of the first artists to move to Taos New Mexico and an original member of the Taos Founders, produced and read by Dr. Mark Sublette Medicine Man Gallery.
Born in Saginaw, Michigan in 1866, Couse studied for three months at the Chicago Art Institute, spending hard-earned house painting money on courses. Couse returned to Saginaw to earn enough money to enroll in the National Academy of Design in New York City. In 1887, spurred on by his success at student exhibitions, he enrolled in the Academie Julien in Paris.
In Paris, Couse meet two individuals who would be central to his life and development: his future wife, Virginia Walker, and the second, a mentor and man who first brought Taos to his attention, Joseph Henry Sharp. Sharp was a central figure in organizing the Taos Society of Artists and is widely considered the spiritual leader of the Taos Founders.
Couse continued to live and work in France, painting the countryside scenes that proved saleable in Europe and the United States. Couse 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 during the winter exhibition season, successfully selling a great number of paintings there.
In 1897, the Couse family moved to Oregon just south of Virginia's childhood home onto a ranch owned by her family. Couse built a studio and painted the Klickitat Indians of the area. Four years later he moved to New York City. He drew upon his sketches and paintings of the Northwest Indians to create Native American-themed works that proved quite popular with New York buyers.
Couse traveled to Taos to visit fellow artists, Bert Phillips and Ernest Blumenschein. He rented a house next door to Phillips' studio and began painting the people of the Taos Pueblo. He would spend every summer between 1902 and 1926 in Taos, eventually establishing permanent residence there in 1927.
Couse used two individuals, Ben Lujan and Geronimo Gomez, as his favorite subjects for the majority of his paintings. Usually, they are seen kneeling or squatting, engaged in a task such as preparing food or making crafts, and 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 Couse's pieces are less ethnographically accurate than many of his contemporaries, his handling of his subjects is unforced, with a relaxed quality that impresses in its ability to convey concentration or rest with very little facial or muscular detail.
In 1914, 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 selling to the likes of John D. Rockefeller, Couse’s gifts to western art were significant and is recognized today as a major art figure. The Couse-Sharp Historic Site Museum in Taos is dedicated to the Couse and Sharp studios and includes many of their paintings and Native American artifacts including a large group of historic pueblo pots used in their paintings.
Special thanks to the Couse-Sharp Historic Site for providing images of the Taos Society of Artists and the Couse-Sharp Historic Site.
Couse-Sharp Historic Site Information: couse-sharp.org/
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Watch the interview on the Art Dealer Diaries with Virginia Couse Leavitt: • Virginia Couse Leavitt...
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