PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE NORTH TEXAS COLLECTION. EANGER IRVING COUSE (American, 1866-1936). The Encampment, circa 1896...

Description

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE NORTH TEXAS COLLECTION

EANGER IRVING COUSE (American, 1866-1936)
The Encampment, circa 1896
Oil on canvas
12 x 16 inches (30.5 x 40.6 cm)
Signed lower right: E.I. Couse

PROVENANCE:
Wortsman Rowe Gallery, San Francisco (label verso).

Couse's boyhood fascination with Indians led him to sketch and thereby discover his artistic talent. The local Chippewa Indians were his first interest, and although he yearned for formal training, he continued to draw tirelessly. As a teenager, Couse painted ads on the sides of buildings in his hometown in order to earn money for tuition. At sixteen he attended the Chicago Art Institute, but when his money ran out three months later, he was forced to return home to Saginaw, Michigan. He next ventured to New York where his funds sustained him for two years at the National Academy of Design. Couse's natural talent distinguished him from his peers and catapulted him into a successful career. Public recognition followed, and in his first year at the academy, he received the Eliot Silver Medal, winning the prestigious Suydom Bronze Medal in his second year. With these accolades under his belt, he left for Paris in 1886, where he studied at the Académie Julian under Fleury and Bouguereau. Couse's accolades did not lessen in Europe, and his years in Paris were marked by notable awards (Concour de Tete, Prix et Medaille, Concour de Esquisse Prix).

After marrying fellow art student Virginia Walker, the Couses spent time at the Walker family ranch in Oregon in 1891. It was here that Couse, who had never lost his passion for American Indian culture, was presented with the opportunity to study the Klikitat, Yakima, and Umatilla tribes for the first time. It was a challenge to overcome the superstitions of the tribes in order to paint them, primarily their belief that taking a person's likeness also took their soul, effectively killing them. The first sitter Couse was able to gain access to was an old woman whom the tribe did not view as a great loss. Models came more readily when word spread that she survived that first sitting.

The Couses lived in France several more years before returning to America in 1896. Couse set up a summer studio at the Walker family ranch where he settled into sketching the local tribes in their natural setting. For the next six years, Couse translated hundreds of his plein-air sketches into formal paintings. He represented the Indians authentically in their traditional dress with the unique elements of their indigenous culture. The Encampment dates from this period and is recognizable as being of the Klikitat tribe by the distinctive teepees, dress, and Pendleton blankets. Couse painted the Pacific Northwest tribes directly from his first hand observations of their vanishing lifestyle.

Couse's papers mention correspondence with a friend in New York, presumably Ernest Blumenschein, who recommended Taos and promised a place to stay. Restless with the pale light of the northwest and tempted by the promise of a brighter landscape, Couse first visited Taos in 1902. The effect it had on him was a gradual saturation of palette not previously seen in his canvases. His colors slowly intensified in reaction to the brilliance of the new surroundings, and the new Indian cultures gave him material to explore.

In his painting Peasant Girl Seated on Shocks of Grain, we see the end result of Couse's palette transformation. The intensity of the colors place this as a work done later in the artist's career. The warm light falls on the objects from a brilliant external source and illuminates every aspect of the composition. Heritage is pleased to offer these two works from one of the signature artists of the American west.


More information about EANGER IRVING COUSE. See also: Couse, Eanger Irving, Couse, E. Irving, Couse, Eanger-Irving, Eanger Irving Couse Artist.

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