Eanger Irving Couse, or E.I., was perhaps the most famous member of the Taos Society of Artists. A highly specialized artist with a rigorous academic background, Couse painted serious figurative scenes of the Indians of Taos Pueblo, usually crouching and often fire-lit.

In 1884, at the age of 18, Couse was able to spend three months at the Chicago Art Institute before his money ran out. For the next two years, 1885-1887, Couse was a student at the National Academy of Design in New York.  Each year, he won awards at the Academy's student exhibitions.

In 1887, Couse went to Paris, where he studied under Adolphe Bouguereau and Robert Fleury at the Academie Julian. He won awards at that Academy for four years, confirming his skill and taste.

In 1891, while in Paris, he married fellow art student Virginia Walker, a rancher's daughter from Washington State. Four years later, he permanently moved to New York City. After the exhibition season, Couse was persuaded to travel to Taos to visit Bert Geer Phillips and Ernest Blumenschein. He rented a house next door to Phillips' studio and began painted the people of the Taos Pueblo. He would spend every summer between 1902 and 1926 there, eventually establishing permanent residence there in 1927.

E. I. Couse died in 1936 a successful and famous painter whose significant gift to Western art is still recognized today as a major figure in the development of a significant school of American painting.