Christin Couture

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, she moved with her family 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. Since the family property bordered the State School, she became fascinated by the patients, who sometimes wandered along the paths in their pajamas when she was out horseback riding. She later drew upon these images in a series called "The Wanderers". From the top of the hill looking north she could see the outline of the Holyoke Range, an image she would paint often.

She studied at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, and received a BFA in painting in 1974. 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 summmerof 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.