Railway Depot, Tryon N.C.

Josephine Sibley Couper grew up comfortably in Augusta, Georgia, and her artistic inclinations were encouraged if it meant she would stay at home. However, in 1889 Couper boldly enrolled at the Art Students League in New York, where Impressionist William Merritt Chase became her mentor. She toured Europe twice before returning home to get married.

Once her children were grown, Couper broadened her subject matter and style. She studied under Elliott Daingerfield in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, and spent several summers learning from Hugh Breckenridge in Gloucester, Massachusetts. In her sixties, Couper again traveled to Paris where she took classes under the French Cubist, André Lhote. In the 1930s American artists became interested in depicting the harsh realities of industries, like the railroads, that slowed as rapid technological progress outpaced them. Couper’s paintings clearly demonstrate her Realist and Impressionist influences with rural, unidealized subjects.