TitleEanger Irving Couse
Artist
Will Howe Foote
(American, 1874 - 1965)
Date[1902]
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 30 × 25 in.
Markings
SubmissionANA diploma presentation, January 5, 1903
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number279-P
Label TextThe 1911 inventory of the Academy collection listed this work as a self-portrait by Couse, and it continued to be registered with that identification until 1985, when Virginia Couse Leavitt, the artist's granddaughter, brought to the Academy's attention a letter in which Couse, in advising Oscar Berninghaus concerning fulfilling the diploma portrait requirement on Berninghaus's election, commented on his own: [block quote:]
Mine was painted by Will Howe Foote, & Miss C. said he made me look like a Pabst Beer sign. . . . I have never seen it since I sent it up 24 years ago. [J. Francis] Murphy . . . told me that he did not recognize it when he saw it. They will accept anything, leaving it to the artist to judge what he wants to represent himself to posterity. I have thought many times to change mine.
[end of block quote]
The date 1902, noted in old registration records as inscribed on the reverse of the canvas, is now obscured by a mounting panel. Thus it cannot be determined whether the artist placed the date there or whether Academy personnel added it to record receipt of the work. The dating is probably accurate, however, as the painting arrived within the year of Couse's election as Associate in 1902.
