Couse-Sharp Historic Site

ABOUT

Located in the center of Taos, CSHS is a 2-plus acre campus that includes the homes, studios and gardens of E. I. Couse and J. H. Sharp. The Couse home and studio remain largely as they were during Couse’s lifetime, with his original artwork, Native American art collection and Spanish Colonial art and furniture. Sharp’s 1915 studio has been restored but also updated to museum environmental standards and includes the largest permanent exhibition of Sharp’s work in the United States. His 1906 studio, in a former family chapel built in the 1830s, hosts seasonal exhibitions. Those taking the two-hour docent-led tour (available by appointment only) see all of the above plus the workshops of the Couses’ son, Kibbey, and an exhibition in The Lunder Research Center, which encompasses Sharp’s former home. Those who can’t make the full tour can see the exhibition in the Research Center five afternoons a week.

SPECIAL RESOURCES

“I think that the mountain scenery in the Taos valley is the greatest in the country. I like the pueblo, streets, and buildings … They are talking about incorporating the town. That would ruin it, just ruin it. Think of having a mayor and constable around.”

— Eanger Irving Couse

“I would rather eat boiled dog in Taos than roast lamb and asparagus in Pasadena.”

— Joseph Henry Sharp

Eanger Irving Couse (1866–1936)

Eanger Irving Couse was born in Saginaw, Michigan. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, National Academy of Design in New York, and Académie Julian in Paris under William Bougereau and Tony Robert Fleury. In 1889, he married Virginia Walker, an American who had come to Paris to study illustration. After a brief sojourn in the US, the Couses moved in 1893 to coastal France, where their son, Kibbey, was born. In 1898 they established a studio in New York, but summers were spent painting away from the city. Couse learned of Taos in 1902 through a conversation with Ernest Blumenschein and soon began sojourns in northern New Mexico. He became one of the founders of the Taos Society of Artists in 1915 and its first president. A painter of Native Americans in Taos for the rest of his life, he died in 1936 after a distinguished career.

Joseph Henry Sharp (1859–1953)

Joseph Henry Sharp was born in Bridgeport, Ohio, to Irish immigrants. At 12, he drowned in a river but was revived; an ear infection subsequently left him completely deaf. He studied at the McMicken School of Design in Cincinnati, and eventually at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Royal Academy of Munich, and Académie Julian in Paris. Upon his return to the States, he taught at the Cincinnati Art Academy. He married Addie Byram in 1892. In 1897, they began to spend summers in Santa Fe and Taos and by 1899 to spend winters in Montana, painting landscapes and portraits of Native American people. In 1913, Addie passed away and two years later Sharp married her sister, Louise. He was a founder of the Taos Society of Artists. The prolific Sharp, who died in 1953, is best known for his realistic portrayals of Indigenous people and floral still lifes.

_{Eanger Irving Couse painting with a model. Photograph courtesy of The Couse Foundation.}

_{A 1934 photo showing 10 members of The Taos Society of Artists in the Couse Garden. Photograph courtesy of The Couse Foundation.}

_{The Couse house and studio from the garden. Photograph courtesy of The Couse Foundation.}

_{A detail from the Couse Studio. Photograph courtesy of The Couse Foundation.}

LEARN MORE

Couse-Sharp Historic Site is the most significant historic site focused on the early twentieth century Taos art colony and the Taos Society of Artists (TSA). During its heyday, the TSA was one of the best known artists’ groups in the nation.

Inspired by the area’s light and landscapes, as well as the people of Taos Pueblo and the Hispano town of Taos—communities many centuries old—these artists made a lasting impact. They shared their skills and resources to encourage one another and to bring their work to critics, collectors, and the public. What they achieved together far outweighs what they could have accomplished as individuals. In addition, there were larger social and economic factors at play that created a cultural phenomenon with the TSA at the center. Their shared vision of creating a uniquely American art forever influenced perceptions of Native America and the West.

CSHS’s 2-plus acre campus includes the homes, studios and gardens of E. I. Couse and J. H. Sharp, two of the TSA’s six founders, as well as the workshops of Kibbey Couse, a pioneering inventor, and The Lunder Research Center. The site overlooks the town against the majestic backdrop of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range. The buildings represent styles of New Mexico architecture from Spanish Colonial of the 1830s to Pueblo Revival of the 1930s. The architecture, furnishings, gardens, views, collections, and archives provide unparalleled insight into the art colony and its milieu.

The research center is the repository for documents and art created and artifacts collected by early Taos artists, including underrepresented women artists. Materials include original documents and correspondence, photographic prints and negatives, sketchbooks, original works of art, a library, relevant scholarly papers, and Indigenous art and ethnographic items. The center includes an exhibition gallery and space for community events.

The TSA, which lasted from 1915 to 1927 and eventually counted 12 men and 1 woman as full members, engaged many local residents as models, some of whom became their close friends. The site today maintains ties with many of the models’ descendants and promotes local art, as the charter of the TSA directed.

Through its archives, collections, and programming, CSHS preserves and interprets Taos’ crossroads of cultures, promoting and facilitating research, education, new perspectives on the Taos Society of Artists, early artists of Taos, and regional and Indigenous communities in relation to the greater story of the multicultural American West.

IN COLLABORATION WITH THE NATIONAL TRUST