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39. Eugene Higgins (1874-1949) Forgotten
Oil on paper laid down to board, 236 x 161 mm., signed, framed. Together with Forgotten, monotype in dark brown, 174 x 120 mm. Superb impression on thick, laid paper, trimmed to the image, the corners rounded, and tipped down to another sheet of heavy wove paper, inscribed verso “The low arch.” The print is apparently unsigned. The much underrated American artist, Eugene Higgins, produced many works whose meaning is clear and definite, but many others of an enigmatic character, which appear to set one down in the middle of a narrative but give no clue to the beginning or the end or even the precise nature of the scene depicted. Such is the case here. Are these merely two men living in a tunnel or sewer? Or has something actually happened here – like a death or even a murder? We don’t know -- the equally enigmatic title does not tell us -- and it is because we don’t know that the image establishes its relation to the viewer and forces one to make up one’s own story. Higgins is often like that. Although technically he was a perfectly capable painter, draughtsman and etcher, it is the content – or the non-content – of his work that is significant, something that resonates not at all in the world of contemporary art. Painting and monotype, the pair. |
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