$77,025
Eanger Irving Couse (American, 1866-1936) Camp at Night , 1923 Signed "E. I.COUSE.N-A-" l.l. Oil on artist board, 12 x 16 in. (30.5 x 40.6 cm), in a Couse-designed Taos Arts & Crafts frame (under glass). Condition: Minor losses. Provenance: Private New England collection. Literature: Falk, Peter, ed., The Annual Exhibition Record of the National Academy of Design, 1901-1950 , Madison: Sound View Press, 1990, p. 147. Exhibitions: National Academy of Design Annual Exhibition, March 16-April 15, 1923, exh. no. 260. N.B. We wish to thank Virginia Couse Leavitt for her assistance with cataloguing the lot. The work will be included in her forthcoming catalogue raisonne on the artist. The Couse-designed frame is significant to the present work, and reflects the Arts and Crafts philosophy of beautiful utility. Though many of the Taos school artists chose hand-carved frames for their works, Couse is one of the few that worked closely with framemakers to create distinctive motifs and finishes "mated" for particular paintings. Couse likely derived his highly-stylized motifs from Southwestern Indian pottery and other artifacts that he collected (1). He was also known to finish his frames with earth tones, "often adding washes of color through the interstices of the carving to bring the frame into closer harmony with the particular lighting in the painted image." (2) The frame on the present work closely resembles one designed by Couse for "Indian Drinking from a Lake," c. Read more…
Auctioneer:
Skinner
Date:
2010-09-24
