110

VERSO
Label, Albuquerque Museum, NM

Couse historian Virginia Couse Leavitt writes, “From the time he arrived in Taos in 1902 until he died in 1936, Couse devoted his work to painting the Taos Pueblo Indians. His interest was in capturing the Indians’ spiritual approach to every activity, no matter how mundane that act might be. Hunters were one of Couse’s favorite subjects. As in this painting, he usually showed them in a quiet mode of either waiting or watching, and one senses that for these men, hunting involves a bond with the natural world that goes far beyond mere subsistence. Couse often took his models into the mountains where he made plein-air studies and/or photographs that he later developed into larger paintings in his studio. These trips gave him ample opportunity to carefully observe his models in the natural environment. In Quail Hunters he painted the hunters hidden in a shaded foreground on the left looking into a distant sun drenched landscape on the right. For a painter, this was a challenging technical problem that he successfully solved.”

PROVENANCE
Lovelace Medical Foundation Collection, Albuquerque, NM
[Bonhams & Butterfields, San Francisco, CA 1990]
Private Collection, NY
Private Collection, TX

EXHIBITED
Painters of the Far West Circuit, 1915
Lovelace Medical Foundation Collection, Albuquerque Museum, NM 1984

Condition ReportSurface condition is excellent. No signs of restoration.

Important Notice: Statements of condition are provided as a service to potential bidders; such statements are educated opinions and should not be regarded as facts. The Coeur d’Alene Art Auction has no responsibility for any errors or omissions.