Christin Couture was born and raised in Western Massachusetts. She attended l'Ecole St. Jeanne d'Arc,
taught by French Canadian nuns who encouraged her to draw. At the age of eleven her family moved to a
house in the country on fifty acres of woods.  She was given her first box of oil paints
 and an easel made by her father.
The family property bordered the State School and she became fascinated by
the patients who sometimes wandered along the paths in their pajamas.
Sometimes she would see them while she was horseback riding, and later
drew upon these images in a series called "The Wanderers".
She studied at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, and received a BFA in painting.
Her thesis exhibition,"KINDERHAUS", featured a constructed environment 
of paintings of children in the center of the gallery, the culmination of independent
study  with Colombian painter, Leonel Gongora.


In 1971 she was involved in the 5 College Dada-Surrealism Festival.
During the summmer of 1972  she studied art history in Bologna, Italy
and also made an excursion to Paris on her 21st Birthday
to see a major show of Surrealism.
The following summer she lived in New York City, took classes
at the Art Students' League, and became friends with Leonora Carrington.
In 1974-75 she attended an experimental graduate program at the
Brooklyn Museum Art School and created a new body of paintings:
large grey babies based on Victorian photography.
              
Her first important one person exhibition in New York was in 1978
at Monique Knowlton Gallery on East 71st St. and featured black and
white drawings of children that dealt with the dichotomy
of good and evil. The show received some good reviews as well as
 the attention of Hans Namuth, George Tooker and Saul Steinberg who
 offered her support and encouragement.

 

In 1980 she received a MacDowell Colony fellowship and began her 'PREDELLA'
series of paintings of interiors with cut-away views inspired by those of the early Italian Renaissance.
Later that year she moved with her standard poodle, Papagano, from Amherst, MA to the East Village
 in NYC, which was becoming an exciting & active art community. Couture continued to be represented
by Monique Knowlton Gallery, who arranged exhibitions for her in NYC and around the country
 until the gallery closed in 1986.
                             
For many years Couture had visited Mexico, enchanted by the color, the people she met,
and the power of its history. In 1983 Couture made her fourth trip to Mexico City,
this time to paint for nine months while living in Coyoacan, and to have her first one-person
 show, "Placeres Terrenales" at Galeria Arvil, who represented her work in Latin America.
Veronica Volkow wrote an essay for the exhibition and Marcos Kutycz designed a catalogue.

In 1987 she had a residency at Yaddo and worked on a body of paintings that were later
exhibited at Galeria Arvil in 1988 as "Seducciones Nocturnas".
Both of her exhibitions traveled throughout Mexico. At that time she also purchased
a small penthouse studio (once a maid's quarters) in the historic Edificio Vizcaya .
When Couture returned to NYC in 1988 she began contributing drawings to the
 New York Times Book Review, and Magazine, as well as paintings for book covers
for authors such as Margaret Atwood, and Francine Prose. In 1989 she was invited
 to be an artist in residence at Fondation Karolyi in Vence, France. Soon after she also
began to write and illustrate two Children's books,
THE HOUSE ON THE HILL and A WALK IN THE WOODS ,
both published by Farrar, Straus Giroux in 1991 and 1993.

In 1992 she went back to Amherst for the summer
with her aged poodlelooking for a place away from the city.
 She found an ideal live/work studio in Shelburne Falls
located in the cafeteria of an old elementary school building,                            nicknamed 'The Buckland Ritz'.

 Couture immediately became involved with the founding
of a new community art center and school, called the Art Bank,
where she organized art events, projects  and exhibitions.

She kept her apartment in the East Village.

In the spring of 1996 she met sculptor William Hosie at an evening lecture
 on Akan Goldweights at the Art Bank. They exchanged studio visits
and many candelit dinners. Couture was enchanted by his collection
 of antiques and folk art, his home (nickmaned 'Rosehall' because of its pink color)
 and environs, and especially his work. Three years later they were married in their
backyard above a ravine overlooking the Deerfield River. They Honeymooned at 
"Las Pozas", the fantasy gardens created by Edward James in Xilitla, Mexico.


In 2002 they moved to a studio in a coop building on East First Street, around the corner from her old
apartment in the East Village, to use as a pied a terre. The building had a remarkable history as the site
of Justus Schwab's saloon , a center for radicals, and where Emma Goldman got her mail.


When the 4,000 sf 3rd floor space at the Art Bank
- once the great hall of the Grand Army of the Republic-
became available in 2008 they decided to use it
as a studio/laboratory/exhibition space for both individual
works and collaborations. They called it 'Whitehall'


In 2011 Couture and Hosie were invited to exhibit work
at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center.
"Nature is Not your Friend- a consideration" featured Hosie's
 'interventions' outside and inside the museum, and a selection
 Couture's paintings that were adapted to the unusual shape
of the space, once an Esty organ showroom.



They continue divide their time between  New England and New York City
 (with frequent trips to Paris & Mexico City).





copyright 2012 christin couture  please ask permission to use any material