2020 Coeur d’Alene Art Auction / Lot 40100 / 240 • View Catalog •
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VERSO
Signed
Artist’s label with title
Partial label, “Taos-Santa Fe exhibit 57’”
Patricia Janis Broder wrote, “In 1917 Victor Higgins became a member of the Taos Society of Artists. His addition to the group gave a new dimension to their exhibitions, for he was the first artist devoted to painting the American West who was strongly influenced by the currents of European avant-garde painting. In many ways he was a transitional figure, a bridge between the conservative traditions of academic painting and the experiments and discoveries of modern art. Throughout his career in Taos, he wished above all to see American painting and art eduction come of age and mature into an independent creative tradition.
“Higgins continued in the mainstream of American art, however, for he remained devoted to representational painting. His paintings are a lyrical yet intellectually determined response to the world around him not independent conceptual or aesthetic experiments characteristic of many schools of modern art, which are devoted to the creative process or to the physical art of painting per se.
“Higgins’ art was at all times a personal reaction to the outside world. In his paintings he explored the interrelation of man and nature, of the artist and his subject. For over thirty years he explored the artistic potential in figure, landscape, portrait, and still-life subjects. His ultimate goal was the creative expression of the essence of the land and people of New Mexico.”
PROVENANCE
The Artist
Private Collection, Los Angeles, CA 1940s
Present owner, by descent
