Higgins said Taos captured him "because of the light. There is the best light to be found anywhere. There is more color in the landscape and the people than elsewhere. And besides this there is the constant call here to create something." Higgins said of Taos, "There is in the mind of every member of the Taos Art Colony, the knowledge that Here is the oldest of American civilizations. The Taos Indians are a people living in an absolutely natural state, entirely independent of all the world. If the rest of humanity were wiped from the earth, they would go ahead just as they are today: self-supporting, self-reliant, simple and competent. Their architecture is the only naturally American architecture in the nation today. All other styles are borrowed from Europe. The manners and customs and style of architecture are the same today that they were before Christ was born.

They offer the painter a subject as full of the fundamental qualities of life as did the Holy Land."

Higgins said that New Mexico's "primitive appeal" and even the special air of Taos country "drives caution from man's brain."  "This strong primitive appeal calls out the side of art that is not derivative; it urges the painter to get his subjects, his coloring, his tone from the real life about him, not from the wisdom of the studios."

"The West is composite, and it fascinates me. In the West are forests as luxurious as the forests of Fontainebleau or Lebanon , desert lands as alluring as the Sahara, and mountains most mysterious. Caflons and mesa that reveal the construction of the earth, with walls just as fantastic as facades of Dravidian Temples. An architecture, also fast disappearing, as homogeneous as the structures of Palestine and the northern coast of Africa ; and people as old as the peoples of history, with customs and costumes as ancient as their traditions. And all this is not the shifting of  playhouse scenes but the erosion and growth of thousands of years, furrowed for centuries by Western rains, dried by Western winds, and baked by Western suns. Nearly all that the world has, the West has in nature, fused with its own eternal self."

"The term reality is greatly misunderstood. It does not mean the ability to copy nature as most people seem to think; it means more than that, the reality of being. The difference between the modernistic and the romantic form of art, as I see it, is the architectural basis. The modern painter builds his picture, he does not merely paint it. He has his superstructure, his foundation, just as an architect has for his buildings."

Concerning his lovefor Taos, Higgins spoke of the natural beauty of the high desert light and added,  "And besides this, there is a constant call here to create something."

Victor Higgins was the youngest member of the Taos Society of Artists and the most modern. His Art combines Impressionism, Modernism (Partially Abstract), Naturalism and Realism.   But that realism was more deeply shaped by modern abstract art than the other members of the Taos Society of Artists.  He never worked as an illustrator, instead he painted from his easel, sometimes even from a special seat in the trunk of his car.

William Victor Higgins, his birth name, was born into a farming community in Indiana.

He was just 14  when the now famous "Broken-Wheel Incident", led to the founding of the Taos Art Colony and the start of the Taos Society of Artists.  In 1898 artists Bert G. Phillips and Ernest L. Blumenschein journeyed by wagon, attempting to reach Taos, New Mexico, but they were stopped by a broken wagon wheel.   Blumenshein later explained,  the one rear wheel collapsed "and there we were, balancing with our precious load at an angle of 45 degrees."  But the trip to Taos to repair the wheel, forever changed Blumenschein's life.  The beauty of the high desert overwhelmed him:  "I was receiving, under rather painful circumstances, the first great unforgettable inspiration of my life," he wrote. "My destiny was being decided."   And the destiny of Taos, too. 

Higgins would be elected to the Taos Society of Artists in 1917 and he remained an active member until it ended in 1927.

He explained his fascination with Taos, "This strong primitive appeal calls out the side of art that is not derivative; it urges the painter to get his subjects, his coloring, his tone from the real life about him, not from the wisdom of the studios."

He began his artistic calling at only nine years old because a traveling artist who painted ads on the side of barns introduced him to painting and art and showed him museums and gave him paints and lessons. 

Victor demonstrated his artistic skills by painting the insides of a barn.

His wife Sara remembered these paintings, "When as a bride I visited the Higgins farm in 1919 these first paintings of Victor's were still there. They were truly astonishing! so many walls covered as high as a child could reach, and so obviously painted by a youngster determined to learn.. ."

Higgins saved his allowance to fulfill his dreams, and at 15 he began to study at the Chicago Art Institute.

The former Chicago mayor and avid art collector Carter Harrison helped the budding painter, and generously agreed to support Higgins to study in Europe.

While in Paris, Victor met Walter Ufer (another recipient of Carter Harrison's artistic sponsorship), and the two became fast friends, despite vastly different personalities. It is thought that they complimented each other.

After returning to Chicago in 1914, Carter Harrison sent Ufer and Higgins to Taos, NM, for a year in exchange for their new works of art.  Higgins was expected to produce 8 paintings in his first year in Taos.

For Higgins falling in love with Taos, the move became permanent in 1915.  He joined fledgling Taos Society of Artists in 1917.

As a member of the Taos Society of Artists, Higgins began to infuse a modernist flavor into his paintings, and is credited with bringing modernism to realism.   In the 1920s,  Higgins' Art moved from Pueblo Indians as his subjects and, to some degree, the Taos Society of Artists, to embrace  and crate a new type of modernism.

He wan many awards for his experimental landscapes, including The First Logan Prize at the Art Institute of Chicago, and the First Altman Prize at the National Academy of Design in New York.  He was elected to the National Academy.

Higgins was married to Sheldon Parsons' daughter, Sara, and then later to Marion Kooglen McNay of San Antonio, Texas.  But his primary preoccupation was his art.

In his last years Higgins  produced what many consider to be his greatest paintings, a series of oils aptly referred to as "Little Gems."   At that time these paintings sold for $250, but now begin at about $30,000

He worked out of the trunk of his car in his signature three piece suit painting a series of small landscapes that his good friend and fellow artist Ernest Blumenschein described as "All works of love: love of his simple subjects and of his craftsmanship."

He died on  Aug. 23, 1949 at the age of 65  stricken with a fatal heart attack while dining at the home of Taos artists Thomas and Dorothy Benrimo.

His death would come to be seen as the end of the Taos Society of Artists as it had been known.

Higgins brought modernism to realism.

His works allow us to see the inherent dignity of the Native peoples and the majesty of our natural landscape.

About Higgins "Little Gems" Blumenschein said,  "His last group of pictures I shall never forget. They were done on sketching trips around Taos Valley and in the Rio Grande Canyon. In them was the best Higgins quality, a lyrical charm added to his lovely color. His art had developed in [an] intellectual side through his adventure with Dynamic Symmetry and other abstract angles. Not that he used mechanical formulas. He always had, as do most good artists, an instinct that guided his form structure .... And he put all he had into this dozen of small canvases. They must have been about 18" wide by ten inches high. All works of love: love of his simple subjects and of his craftsmanship. These pictures had the 'extra something' that the right artist can put into his work when he is 'on his toes.'"

"I gathered from his good breeding, soft-spoken voice , and gentle manner that his boyhood was uneventful. He was not a strong, virile character like Ufer, but one of hesitating sensitive nature.  Higgins felt out his compositions with a broad, sweeping style and masses of color en rapport. He had a painter 's style."   - Ernest Blumenschein 

He called Higgins as "the dreamer" as opposed to a realist.

Joan was Higgins' daughter from his marriage to Sara Parsons, herself the daughter of Sheldon Parsons.  Sara said of her marriage to Victor:

 "I am positive I was the first child of thirteen to cook him 

a five-course Thanksgiving dinner on a two-burner oil stove that smoked and sputtered 

in a small adobe room overlooking piñon dotted foothills and the handsome snow-capped peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Range." 

Victor was very proud of his family and his rural upbringing. 

He said, "The nearest thing to art was my father's love of flowers. He loved their forms and their colors, 

and he tended his garden as a painter might work a canvas."

Victor Higgins media include Conte Crayon, Crayon, Oil Paint and Watercolors.

He painted primarily in watercolors and oil.

His art works combine Partially Abstract Modernism and Impressionism with Representation, Realist, Naturalism and Realism.

Victor Higgins paintings include Adobe Structures and Pueblos, Portraits, Native American Indians,

 Snowscapes and Winterscapes, Indian Figures Prior to 1940, Human Figures, Landscapes,

 Still Lifes, and Cattle or Other Farm Animals in Landscapes.

Although Higgins Art is realistic,  he was the most profoundly influenced by modern abstract art of all the other members of the Taos Society of Artists.

Higgins was never employed as an illustrator.  He preferred to paint from his easel.

Higgins lived or worked in California, New Mexico,

 Taos, New Mexico, Santa Fe, New Mexico and Cornwall, England.

His birth name was William Victor Higgins, given when

he was born into a farming community in Indiana.

But he was not interested in farming.

Born in Shelbyville, Indianapolis on June 28, 1884 into a large Irish family he then

moved to Chicago in 1899.

His father gave him his first introduction to Art in his garden.

Higgins said, "He loved their forms and their colors,

 and he tended his garden as a painter might work a canvas."

His interest in Art increased  after meeting John Cornelius,

 a sign painter from Indianapolis who told him wondrous stories about the museums, galleries

and art schools of Chicago.

Cornelius purchased paints and brushes so the young Higgins could practice.

Higgins first demonstrated his talent at age 9 when he painted the insides of his fathers' barn.

In 1899 when he was 15, he studied at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Then he studied at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts.

He supported himself by working in a sign shop and making theater decorations.

He studied with E. Martin Hennings and Walter Ufer.

Then, in 1908 he went to New York,

and he met Robert Henri.

He went to California in 1910, only to return to New York.

There he met George Bellows.

Later in 1910 Victor Higgins traveled to Paris and Munich to continue studying art,

studying at the Academie de la Grand Chaumiere.

He studied in Paris under Réné Ménard and Lucien Simon.

He mentored with Hans von Hayek in Munich.

He did not study with the modern experimental artists of Parisian art circles.

While in Paris, he would meet Walter Ufer and begin a long and productive friendship.

Sharing a rejection of Academics and feeling the need for a truly American Art,

He returned to America in 1912.

He showed an exhibition of his Art at the Palette and Chisel Club

and earned national attention and the esteemed Gold Medal prize.

In 1913, he returned to Chicago.

His development was shaped by the New York Armory Modernism Show of 1913 in New York,

especially by the works of Marcel Duchamp and Marsden Hartley.

From 1910 to 1914 Higgins was a student at the Academie de la Grande

 Chaumier in Paris, studying under René Menard and Lucien Simon.

He studied under Réné Ménard and Lucien Simon and then in Munich with Hans von Hyeck,

and with George Bellows and Robert Henri, who encouraged him to study abroad.

While at the Academie de la Grande Chaumier in Paris (1910-1914),

He was introduced to Walter Ufer.  Ufer as well was also sponsored by Carter Harrison.

He showed at the Club of American Artists.

In 1914, Higgins went to first to Santa Fe, where he met Sheldon Parsons,

unofficial welcomer for the newly arriving artists.

Later he would marry Sheldon's daughter, Sarah.

In Taos he began to paint landscapes on commission.

He was aided by Chicago mayor, collector and art patron Carter Harrison,

who encouraged otherartists to paint inTaos as well.

Harrison supported Higgins to study for four years in Paris and Munich.

In 1916, under the threatening clouds of war,

Mable Dodge and her husband, Maurice Sterne, returned to Taos.

Maurice Sterne, although he stayed only two years,  was the one who invited Andrew Dasburg to Taos.

Mable would soon divorce Maurice and then marry Taos Indian Tony Luhan.

Higgins became part of Mables’ circle of Taos artists.

Higgins was never an illustrator, unlike some of the Taos artists.

He primary concern was composition.  He was an "easel painter."

In 1915 he was elected into the Taos Society of Artists.

He exhibited with Jane Peterson in 1925 and with Wayman Adams and Janet Scudder in 1927.

In 1918 he won the First Logan Prize at the Art Institute of Chicago

and the First Altman Prize at the National Academy of Design, New York for his work "Fiesta Day". 

From 1917-1923 he served as a teacher at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts.

In 1919, Higgins painted murals for the Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City, Missouri.

In the 1920s he created many landscapes.

1920 marks a major change in his Art, as it becomes more alive in brushwork, color, and subject .

He was elected to the National Academy in 1921.

He met Dasburg and Marin in Taos,

leading him to experiment with multi-point perspectives and interlocking planes.

In 1923, He was commissioned for a mural in the Herington Post Office.

His daughter, Joan, who he cherished, was born in 1922.

But, to his great sorrow, Victor and Sara divorced in 1924.

Victor Higgins showed at the Museum of Modern Art's second exhibition in 1929

as one of only 19 invited artists.

In 1935 Higgins was elected to Academician of the National Academy of Design.

He had become an accomplished painter, achieving excellence in both oils and pastels.

Higgins remarried in the late 1930s to San Antonio, Texas, heiress Marion Koogler McNay.

They separated after two years and then divorced in 1940.

He was known for painting in a three piece business suit.

He died on  Aug. 23, 1949 at the age of 65.

His death was thought to be the end of the Taos Society of Artists as it had been known.

"Abiquiu Country"

"A Shrine to St. Anthony"

"Aspen Grove"

"Aspens"

"At the River's Edge"

"Baking Bread, Taos"

"Fiesta Day"

"Floral Still Life"

"Four Shawled Women"

"House on the Hill"

"Indian at Stream" 

"Juanito, the Suspicious Cat"

"Moorland Gorse and Bracken"

"Moorland Piper"

"Mountain Landscape, NM"

"New Mexico Sky"

"On the Quay"

"Pablita's Gate" or "Sisters"

"Pink and Black"

"Pueblo of Taos"

"Ruth"

"Talpa Landscape"

"Taos from the Hillside"

"Taos in Winter"

"Taos, New Mexico"

"Taos Street in Winter"

"The Blue Shawl"

"Valley Town: View of Pueblo Town"

"Walking Rain (Pablita Passes)"

"Women of Taos"

"Winter Funeral"

"Indian Nude"

"Thinning Aspen"

"The Cottonwoods"

Albuquerque Museum

Anschutz Collection

Art Institute of Chicago

Butler Institute of American Art

Chicago Union League Club

Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center

Dallas Museum of Art

Denver Art Museum

Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians-Western Art

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Harmsen Western Art Collection

Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, New Mexico

Indianapolis Museum of Art

Jonson Gallery of University of New Mexico

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Museum of The Southwest

New Mexico Museum of Art

New Jersey State Museum

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Phoenix Art Museum

Richmond Art Museum

Rockford Art Museum

Sangre De Cristo Arts Center

Smithsonian American Art Museum,

Snite Museum of Art

Stark Museum of Art

Santa Fe Railway

The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art

The Harwood Museum of Art

The University of Michigan Museum of Art

Union League Club of Chicago

William Foxley Collection-Western

Wichita Art Museum

The Gold medal of the Palette and Chisel Club of Chicago (1914)

The Chicago Municipal Art League Prize (1915)

The first Logan Medal of the Chicago Art Institute ($500) (1918)

The first Altman prizes at the National Academy of Design (1918, 1927, 1932)

Academician of the National Academy of Design in New York in 1935

Exhibition at the Luxembourg in France

Exhibition at the Venice Biennale

Trustee of the Harwood Foundation in Taos.

He was a professional in theAllied Artists of America,

and the Chicago Artists Society.

"Oka and Walmacho"  1915 oil on canvas 27 1/16 in. x 30 1/16 in.

umich.edu

"Taos Street in Winter"

"Floral Still Life"

"Indian Paint Brush"

"Untitled (Dog and Fence)"

"Walking Rain (Pablita Passes)"

New Mexico Museum of Art

"Aspen Trees"

"Spring Rains"

Art Institute of Chicago

http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/11371?search_no=1&index=0