Eanger Irving Couse
1866-1936
The Sculptor
MEDIUM: Oil on canvas
DIMENSIONS: 24 x 20 inches
Signed lower right
SOLD FOR: $117,000.00
Including Buyers Premium
2024 - APRIL,
LOT 279
Additional Information
Provenance:
Braus Art Gallery, New York, NY, 1915
Mr. Lutz, 1916
Private collection, Williamson, GA
Private collection, Texas
Literature:
American Art News, “14 Indian Pictures at Braus Gallery,” New York, April 9,
1915, image was published with title Indian Sculptor.
Painted just a year before the formation of the Taos Society of Artists, Eanger Irving Couse’s painting The Sculptor (also referred to as Indian Sculptor by the artist) shows a Native American figure using tools to carve a pictograph figure into a wall. The piece was originally presented in a show at the Braus Art Gallery, from April 8 to 17, 1915, in New York City. The solo exhibition, which received notice in art publications at the time, included other classic Couse works The Medicine Water, The Pueblo Housetop and Prayer to the Water God. In addition to the paintings in the exhibition, Couse also decorated the gallery with pottery and other Native American items from his collection to help set a mood that would transport visitors to the Taos Pueblo. “The Rocky Mountain region abounds in pictographs cut into the rocks by the ancient Indians representing figures of men and animals and symbols of natural phenomenon,” Couse wrote about his subject. “Having no written language, the Indians depicted their deeds and legends by pictorial representation on skin or the rocks…”