Higgins was born on a farm in Shelbyville, Indiana, on 28 June 1884. He developed an interest in art as a boy, especially after meeting John Cornelius, a sign painter from Indianapolis who spoke enthusiastically about the museums, galleries and art schools of Chicago.  Intent on pursuing an artistic career, Higgins moved to Chicago in 1899, going on to study at the school of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts.  He later supported himself by doing odd jobs, including working in a sign shop and doing theatre decorations.  After making a trip to California in 1910, he went to New York, where he met the painters George Bellows and Robert Henri, who encouraged him further his education abroad.

Desirous of refining his skills, Higgins traveled to Europe in 1911.  After a period of activity in St. Ives, Cornwall, he went to Germany, studying with Hans von Hayek in Munich and exhibiting his work at the Club of American Artists, where his fellow members included the painter Walter Ufer.  From there, he went to Belgium and then to Paris, attending classes at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière under René Menard and Lucien Simon.  In 1913, he was back in Chicago in time to see the legendary Armory Show (International Exhibition of Modern Art), which prompted his interest in progessive painting strategies.  Higgins then began teaching at the Academy of the Fine Arts and exhibiting his work at local venues. His paintings soon caught the eye of Carter Harrison, an art collector and former mayor of Chicago who commissioned him to paint the scenery of New Mexico.  In 1914, Higgins traveled to Taos with the aforementioned Ufer and was immediately fascinated by the American Indian population and the picturesque beauty of his surroundings.

Higgins's affinity for the culture and landscape of Taos was such that he decided to settle there permanently; both he and Ufer became members of the Taos Society of Artists, a group of artists that included Joseph Sharp, E. Irving Couse, Oscar Berninghaus, Bert Phillips and W. Herbert Dunton.  As Higgins once stated:

"There is in the mind of every member of the Taos art colony the knowledge that here is the oldest of American civilizations.  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 went on to establish a reputation for his striking portrayals of the Taos Indians, which he conceived in terms of simplified forms and rich hues.  However, during the 1920s, he turned increasingly to landscape subjects, taking great delight in the spectacular shapes and colors of the local mountains, as well as the ever-changing moods of its expansive skies.  Throughout this period, he continued to favor stylized shapes and carefully structured designs, although his palette shifted from the ocher and earth tones of his early New Mexican period to a brighter chromatic range.

In the 1930s, as avant-garde painting became increasing accepted in Chicago art circles, Higgins evolved his style further; influenced by the example of American Modernists such as Andrew Dasburg and John Marin, whom he met in Taos, as well as by his familiarity with the landscapes of Paul Cézanne, he began to incorporate geometric tendencies into his work, exploring such devices as the interpenetrating planes and varying perspectives of Cubism.  In the late 1940s, Higgins produced his well-known "little gems"--lyrical plein-air paintings of the Rio Grande that were much admired for their deft handling of light and color and their thick, impastoed surfaces.

After settling in the Southwest, Higgins continued to maintain a residence and exhibit his work in Chicago, where he retained a devoted following of patrons, including many businessmen and industrialists.  He was the recipient of numerous awards and prizes, including 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 (1918); and the first Altman prizes at the National Academy of Design (1918, 1927, 1932), among other honors.  He was elected an academician of the National Academy of Design in New York in 1935 and also served as a trustee of the Harwood Foundation in Taos.  His professional affiliations also included Allied Artists of America and the Chicago Artists Society.

Higgins died in Taos on 23 August 1949 at the age of sixty-five.  Examples of his work can be found in many public and private collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago; the Union League Club of Chicago; the Dallas Museum of Art; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Stark Museum of Art, Orange, Texas; the Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe; the Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, New Mexico; the Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio; and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

CL

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