Eanger Irving Couse A Place in the Sun

September 11, 2008 - February 8, 2009

Born in Saginaw, Michigan, in 1866, but trained in New York and Paris, Eanger Irving Couse became a seminal figure in the landscape of American art. By uniting his academic training with exotic images of the Taos Indians and their pueblo, Couse helped found the Taos Society of Artists in New Mexico and inspired a new spirit in American art.

Couse was best known for his later work - vivid scenes of Native Americans and the Southwest environment. Those paintings are romantic and often fictional in their detail; a fact which might prompt today's viewers with their contemporary sensibilities to dismiss such works as culturally exploitive. Yet, to do so would controvert Couse's artistic contribution.

Like many artists of the time, Couse and his artistic contemporaries rendered scenes of simpler times, whether personified by French peasants or Native American pueblos. Such idyllic tableaus offered reprieve from the rapid shift towards an industrialized landscape around the turn of the 19th century. Their intent was to glorify and promote a return to former ways of life-the mundane made mythic. Yet Couse, who was more concerned with aesthetics than social commentary, sought to imbue his art with a unique American quality. The Southwest provided the ideal environment to accomplish this. In Taos, New Mexico, Couse found a place where eager models, remarkable views, and incomparable light converged with his life experiences to create exotic and captivating paintings that received international acclaim.

Drawing primarily from the collections of the Saginaw Art Museum and the Rockwell Museum of Western Art, this exhibition illuminates the career of this painter who helped forge a distinct American identity in art. Beyond the partition here on the first floor, bucolic French scenes and other early paintings from Couse's studies in France illustrate the influence of Couse's famed teacher, William Adolph Bouguereau, and the French Academic style. These early works also demonstrate a vestige of French Realism and Impressionism in Couse's work. On the second floor, figure drawings and preparatory sketches reveal Couse's meticulous skill as a draftsman. Paintings by his Taos Society of Artists colleagues reveal some cross influence among the artists. Finally, his best known works, seen here, demonstrate the evolution from the pastel pastoral scenes of his European training to the vibrant palette and striking figures of the Southwestern landscape for which he is best remembered. His philosophy and later style reflect his effort "to remove the misconception and contempt in which the Indian has been held, and to show that they are human beings worthy of...a place in the sun. "