Haughty, unpredictable and handsome, Jerry Mirabel of the Taos Pueblo modeled for both Couse and Sharp. Sharp's circa 1920 portrait captures some of those qualities. Private collection.
:Two of the founders of the Taos Art Colony and Taos Society of Artists, Eanger Irving Couse (1866–1936) and Joseph Henry Sharp (1859–1953), shared many things in common. Both were from the Midwest — Couse originally from Michigan and Sharp from Ohio — and each had studied in Europe and brought to New Mexico the academic painting tradition he had experienced in Paris.
By 1909, the two artists had bonded in Taos, becoming next-door neighbors near the Plaza on Kit Carson Road, their studios separated by a massive adobe wall. They remained friends and colleagues for the rest of their careers.
Launching the Couse Foundation's centennial celebration of the year Couse and Sharp became neighbors, the Harwood Museum of Art is presenting two revelatory exhibitions, "Kindred Spirits and the Adobe Connection: E.I. Couse and J.H. Sharp" and "A Painter and his Camera: Model Studies by E.I. Couse," both on view through October 18.
The first show features paintings by both artists, along with artifacts depicted in Couse paintings and relevant sketchbooks and photographs. Visitors thus have an opportunity to gauge the creative processes and compare the styles of Couse and Sharp.
The second exhibition, drawn from around 10,000 photographs in the Couse family archives, showcases about 20 camera studies Couse undertook in preparing for easel paintings. Couse's meticulous preparation and application of the Beaux-Arts principles he learned in Paris resulted in views of Native Americans and their surroundings that are of enduring quality and interest.
Couse had great admiration for the craft-making abilities of the Pueblo Indians, and did many paintings of them at work, such as "The Moccasin Maker,” 1920. Private collection.
Couse and Sharp "are the most dedicated academics of the Taos artists, and their paintings reflect those late Nineteenth Century European studies," observes Jina Brenneman, Harwood curator. She notes that both were prolific, successful artists who started painting Native American subjects in the Northwest around the turn of the century and settled in Taos shortly thereafter. Both painters admired Indian arts and crafts and assembled extensive Native American collections.
Underscoring the broader implications of Couse and Sharp's Taos work, art historian Marie Wilkins of Furman University, who will lecture at the Harwood on October 16, points out that "The Beaux-Arts tradition never left…[them]. Paris determined how Couse and Sharp painted. In turn,…[they], along with their Taos colleagues, transformed American art. What they learned in Paris didn't stay in Paris, but unfolded into a rich and diverse Taos panorama."
In line with academic tradition, Couse and Sharp's paintings were based on careful preparatory steps seeking to place realistic detail at the service of distinctive subjects. Taos artists, particularly Couse, made extensive use of photography, props and observation in creating pictures.
Couse, born in Saginaw, Mich., grew up among Chippewa Indians of the region. Early on in France he painted austere peasant subjects, imbuing rural vignettes with a simplicity and dignity that reflected lives based in nature and the land. In 1893, after seeing a religious ceremony in a French village, he assembled a group of locals, posed them for photographs and created an oil sketch before completing a large composition, "La Toussaint a Enocq," 1893. In the exhibition, the preliminary views displayed alongside the final canvas show how closely the young artist adhered to what he saw.
