Charles Higgins / Pic, Lovers at Dusk, 1968, Oil on Paper, Framed

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Charles Higgins (‘Pic’)
(1893 Belgrano, Argentina – 1980 London)
“Lovers at dusk”, c.1968
Oil on paper
Unsigned
98 × 144 … Read more Charles Higgins (‘Pic’)
(1893 Belgrano, Argentina – 1980 London)
“Lovers at dusk”, c.1968
Oil on paper
Unsigned
98 × 144 mm | 3 3/4 × 5 5/8 in
310 × 360 mm | 12 1/8 × 14 1/8 in (framed size)

Wonderful, intense, scene of two figures embracing against a dramatically stormy background, their faces clothing formed of lightning-fast impasto brushstrokes. A very typical, visionary scene by this much admired and collected artist.

Framed under glass in elaborately moulded gilt frame.

Unsigned, but acquired together with two other signed works of similar style and date

‘Pic’ was the pseudonym of Charles Higgins. He was born in Argentina of Scottish parents. Having been wounded at Gallipoli, he returned to South America in 1919 to work as a construction engineer. Returning to Britain in the 1920s to devote his life to painting, he built a cottage on the Island of Barra in the Outer Hebrides and dived his time between there and his studio in St Johns Wood, London. He married Kate Elisabeth Olver the Portrait Painter in 1927.

In 1947 Pic’s work was shown in the first of many exhibitions at the Gimpel Fils Gallery in Mayfair, with frames by Robert Sielle. Artist and critic Maurice Collis (some of whose works are also available here) wrote in the catalogue: ‘Those who like some sort of a peg upon which to hang a classification may summon the name of Chagall to give a hint of Pic’s poetical content , though his paintings do not resemble Chagall’s. Nevertheless, his mood is of that sort and he depicts a state of mind that is shadowy, haunted, dream-led and fantastic. Sometimes he achieves his effects by the help of the fortuitous surface, shape and peculiarity of the wood upon which he paints…\. The paint, extremely accomplished, surges under his hand; the colour has a fiery crackle; and there is a sombre fire in the mood. These, I submit, are extraordinary paintings which could hold their own in the most forceful company.’

Collis noted that prior to 1947 Pic’s paintings had only attracted the interest of ‘connoisseurs…. There are, thank God, a few people who know a good picture when they see it and who buy it without any assurance from third parties’.

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