Eanger Irving Couse Biography | Oil Painting Reproductions

As a boy, Eanger Irving Couse started drawing members of the Chippewa tribe who lived nearby. He attended neighborhood school as a child and continued practicing his art.

Couse left Michigan for professional art studies at the Art Institute of Chicago and the National Academy of Design, New York. He went to Paris, where he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts and Académie Julian under William-Adolphe Bouguereau. He lived in France for 10 years, painting mostly landscapes and seascapes of the Normandy coast.

After his return to the United States, Eanger Irving Couse first lived in New York. He spent time in Taos, New Mexico during the summers. At the turn of the nineteenth century, the Southwest, and New Mexico specifically, attracted artists and writers because it remained untouched by westward national expansion. The artists and writers of this era wanted to capture the last vestiges of the Old West before it vanished altogether. During his time in New Mexico, Couse painted the lives and culture of the Taos Indians, a Pueblo tribe. Eanger Irving Couse's The Captive was shown at his first one-man show in 1891, held at the Portland Art Association, and then at the Paris Salon of 1892. This large painting was the first Native American subject by Couse. Elk-Foot of the Taos Tribe, painted in 1909, is considered Couse's masterpiece. He achieved fame for his paintings of the indigenous peoples of New Mexico.

In 1911 Couse was elected to the National Academy of Design. He also became active in the Taos artist colony. In 1915, Couse was one of the six founding members of the Taos Society of Artists and was chosen as its first president.

Art Movement: American Western Art.
Artists Influencing Eanger Irving Couse: Adolphe Bouguereau.
He Traveled To France.
Artist's Biography compiled by Albert L. Mansour at The World's Artist, with text adapted from Wikipedia.