E Irving Couse

E. Irving Couse painted Native Americans of the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico, usually shown crouched by a campfire or a stream, with the warm glow of firelight on skin, beadwork and pottery. His pictures are calm and reflective, and the firelit effect is his signature.

He was born in Saginaw, Michigan, in 1866. He trained at the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Academy of Design in New York and in Paris at the Académie Julian under William-Adolphe Bouguereau, which gave him his solid academic drawing. He first visited Taos in 1902 and later settled there. In 1915 he was a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists and its first president. His Elk-Foot of the Taos Tribe is in the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

By the Fire and A Vision of the Past are typical. Look at how the light falls on the figure from below. He died in 1936.