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Higgins, Victor (1884 - 1949)

Currency:USD Category:Art Start Price:40,000.00 USD Estimated At:40,000.00 - 50,000.00 USD
Higgins, Victor (1884 - 1949)
<strong>Higgins, Victor </strong>
(1884 - 1949)

<strong>New Mexico Landscape, ca. 1930-1940</strong>

watercolor
14 x 20 1/2 inches (sight)
signed lower left: <i>Victor Higgins.</i>

Victor Higgins first visited Taos in 1914. Two decades later, the artist was painting bold and modern watercolors such as this one, entitled <i>New Mexico Landscape.</i> These were forays into modernism, brilliant experiments in which he continued to explore the dynamic New Mexico landscape with which he had become enamored. John Marin, a fellow artist who visited
Taos in June 1929, no doubt influenced him in his use of this medium, but this factor should not
be overstated. By the 1930s, Higgins had shifted the focus of his work; he had begun to rely "more
upon abstract forms, the abruptness and decisiveness of brushstroke, and geometric shapes." (Porter, <i>American Master,</i> p. 166) He was breaking down forms into their most basic
representations, using sweeping brushstrokes and dollops of vibrant color to depict trees, mountains, and streams.

These innovative techniques are evident in <i>New Mexico Landscape.</i> Note the daubs of green paint, forms that indicate the brush on the distant hillside. The artist is exploring spatial relationships, drawing the viewer's eye from the blue streaks that could indicate a stream in the lower foreground, back up to the heights of the green mountains rising in the background, capped by a unifying blue sky. The space is intimately defined on either side by the brown rocks and green vegetation, boundaries that lend a sense of perspective for the viewer. Through abstraction and experimentation, Higgins succeeded in capturing the majestic, limitless expanse of the desert landscape on compact canvases.—DW


Provenance:
Private Collection, New Mexico

Literature:
Dean Porter, <i>Victor Higgins 1884-1949,</i> ex. cat., Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame, 1975
Dean Porter, <i>Victor Higgins: An American Master,</i> Salt Lake City, Utah: Peregrine Smith Books, 1991 p. 278, no. 33b.
Amy Scott, <i>The Taos Society of Artists: Masters & Masterworks,</i> Santa Fe, New Mexico: Gerald Peters Gallery, 1998, p. 78