Artist: Eanger Irving Couse
Title: A Weaver
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 35 x 46 inches
Signed: Signed lower right
Framed/Base: 40 x 51 inches
This lot's overall appearance is Excellent. For more details please view the attached Condition Report.
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Provenance:
The F.H. Bressler Fine Arts Gallery, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Private collection, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, by family descent
Literature:
E. Irving Couse 1866-1936, Nicholas Woloshuk, Santa Fe Village Art Museum, Santa Fe, NM, 1976, p. 16
The Taos paintings of Eanger Irving Couse are now considered classics of the region and period, and instantly identifiable to Couse, but it’s important to note that his quiet domestic scenes of Native Americans were relatively unique upon their creation in the early 20th century. In Virginia Couse Leavitt’s book, Eanger Irving Couse: The Life and Time of An American Artist, 1866-1936, the artist’s granddaughter makes the case that American painters of that time favored subject over style as a form of national expression. She quotes Ernest L. Blumenschein: “We were ennuied with the hackneyed subject matter of thousands of painters; windmills in a Dutch landscape; Brittany peasants with sabots; ... lady in negligee reclining on a sumptuous divan; lady gazing in mirror; lady powdering her nose, etc. etc. We felt the need for a stimulating subject.” It’s for this reason that Taos, New Mexico, became a painter’s paradise—artists were looking for something original to paint.
And yet, even within Taos, Couse’s work stood out. “In the first decade of the 20th century, Couse’s interpretation of Indian subjects was unique among painters, a point clearly implied in an article titled ‘Native Material in American Art,’ published in the New York Herald in 1906,” writes Couse Leavitt. “In a brief survey of how the best-known contemporary painters of Native people approached their subject, the author included warlike images of Remington, Schreyvogel and De Cost Smith; the depictions of Indian myths by Edwin Willard Deming; and the portraiture of E. Burbank, [Bert Geer] Phillips, and [Joseph Henry] Sharp. The author singled out Couse's individual approach, touching on both his style and his subject matter, describing his approach as ‘a delicate balance between poetry and realism…depicting the home life and legends of the North American Indian.’ Although this balance between poetry and realism was unique among painters, it had much in common with the work of contemporary photographers like Edward S. Curtis, Adam Clark Vroman, and Carl Moon. Couse’s own use of the camera in preparing studies for his paintings undoubtedly reinforced and perpetuated these elements in his style.” Couse Leavitt goes on to link Couse’s work to the paintings of George de Forest Brush, who also painted Native American figures in peaceful interior settings.
A Weaver encapsulates Couse’s classic style and subject, and shows his interest in other art forms he had become acquainted with after his first visit to Taos in 1902. Although he likely painted pottery more, paintings involving weavings and looms were certainly a favorite subject. It’s important to note that unlike Navajo weavers, which were exclusively women at that time, Taos weavers were frequently men. The model is likely Jerry Mirabal, based on his profile and the patch of hair near his ear, although Couse may have used photographic reference of model Francisco Gomez, who posed for a series of photos around 1908 that include a weaving with a similar design. Couse frequently took pictures of his subjects to use for later paintings. Digital versions of these photos and many others are viewable through the University of New Mexico’s digital collection.
