Eanger Irving Couse
Born Michigan, 1866
Died New Mexico, 1936

E. I. Couse was born in Saginaw, Michigan in 1866. He spent his childhood in the remote logging center, sketching the local Chippewa and Ojibwa Indians. In 1884, he spent three months at the Chicago Art Institute. From 1885-1887, Couse was a student at the National Academy of Design in New York, where each year he won awards at the academy's student exhibitions. Couse traveled to Paris in 1887 where he studied under Robert Fleury and Adolphe Bouguereau at the Académie Julien. He won the highest honors offered by the Académie Julien and had his works accepted into the Salon de Paris.

While in Paris, Couse expressed his interest in painting Indians to Ernest Blumenschein and Joseph Henry Sharp. They told him about the colorful costumes and rituals of the Taos tribe, and shared with him their enthusiasm for New Mexico. In 1902, Couse made his first summer visit to Taos. He fell instantly in love, and arranged his life to spend as many months as possible in the Southwest. In 1915, Couse, along with fellow Taos artists Blumenschein, Sharp, Phillips, Dunton and Berninghaus, formed an association to promote the sale of their work through traveling exhibitions. From its inception until its final dissolution in 1927, the Taos Society of Artists was a successful commercial venture.

Education: Académie Julien, Paris; Art Institute of Chicago; National Academy of
Design, NY.

Collections: (partial list) The Anschutz Collection, Denver; Brooklyn Museum of Art,
New York; Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, TX; Detroit Institute of Arts, MI; Fort Worth
Art Center, TX; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Milwaukee Art Center,
WI; Montclair Art Museum, NJ; Mulvane Art Museum, Topeka; Museum of Fine Arts,
Santa Fe, NM; National Gallery, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC; Philbrook Art
Center, Tulsa; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, CA; Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio.

References:
Coke, Van Deren, Taos and Santa Fe The Artist's Environment 1882-1942. University of
New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1963.
Nelson, Mary Carroll, The Legendary Artists of Taos, Watson-Guptill Publications, New
York, 1980.
Taggett, Sherry Clayton and Schwartz, Ted, Paintbrushes and Pistols, How the Taos
Artist Sold the West. John Muir Publications, Santa Fe, 1990.

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