Circa 1930 Art Deco Samson and Delilah Oil Painting by Eugene Higgins, Framed

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Eugene Higgins (American 1874 - 1958) Art Deco oil painting on board of Samson and Delilah in gilt wood frame … Read more Eugene Higgins (American 1874 - 1958) Art Deco oil painting on board of Samson and Delilah in gilt wood frame circa 1930. Measures 16 1/2" x 13 1/2" (sight); 22 3/8" x 19 3/8" (framed). Painter and printmaker, Higgins worked in the tradition of Jean-François Millet and Honoré Daumier; he expressed his humanitarian intests in portrayals of the poor and downtrodden. Higgins, a social realist painter and etcher, was born the son of an Irish stonecutter and builder in Kansas City, Missouri in 1874. After his mother's death, he moved to Saint Louis to attend classes at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts. In 1897, Higgins traveled to Paris and studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and the Academie Julian, under Jean Paul Laurens, Benjamin Contrast and Jean Leon Gerome. In France he developed the skill of etching, which became his primary way of earning money. In 1904, Higgins returned to America, spending a year in St. Louis before establishing a studio in New York City. He remained in New York except for summers spent in Old Lyme, Connecticut. He showed two paintings and one drawing in the Armory Show of 1913. Higgins was elected an academician at the National Academy of Design in 1928. In 1957, the year before he died, the Library of Congress purchased 240 of his etchings. During the Depression era Higgins created murals including for post offices in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania; Shawano, Wisconsin and Mount Pleasant Tennessee. See less