Spring Rains

c. 1924

Victor Higgins (American, 1884–1949)

In Spring Rains, Victor Higgins featured two Native Americans on horseback amidst a sublime landscape. He depicted El Salto Peak ringed with clouds and flooded the valley below with light, creating shimmering atmospheric effects with his vibrant palette. As the artist once observed, “A field or a mountain is always changing. They change size and color with every passing cloud and with the passing of every hour and season.” Higgins studied and taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He first went to Taos, New Mexico, in 1914, sponsored by a group of Chicagoans who wanted to support local artists. Liberated from financial concerns, Higgins experimented boldly with modern form and color.

Status: On View, Gallery 272
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: Victor Higgins
Title: Spring Rains
Place: Taos (Object made in)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: c. 1924
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Signed recto, bottom-right, on sandy ground, in dark grey paint: "VICTOR HIGGINS-".
Dimensions: 102.2 × 109.9 cm (40 1/4 × 43 1/4 in.)
Credit Line: Friends of American Art Collection
Reference Number: 1924.18

National Academy of Design, Centennial Exhibition, National Academy of Design, 1825–1925, exh. cat. (Washington, DC: National Academy of Design, 1925), 12, 26, 153, cat. 250.
Robert B. Harshe, Catalogue of A Century of Progress Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1933), 71, cat. 563.
Judith A. Barter, Window on the West: Chicago and the Art of the New Frontier, 1890–1940, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2003), ii, 67, 68, 133, cat. 49, fig. 31 (ill.).

Washington, DC, Corcoran Gallery of ArtCentennial Exhibition, Oct. 17–Nov. 15, 1925, cat. 250; New York, Grand Central Art Galleries, Dec. 1, 1925–Jan. 3, 1926 (organized by the National Academy of Design).
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, May 23–Oct. 31, 1933, cat. 563.
IN, South Bend Art Association, American Painting in the Manner of the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, Feb. 10–Mar. 31, 1948, no cat.
Chicago, University Club, long term loan, 1954–1981.
Phoenix Art Museum, Victor Higgins: an American Master, Dec. 14, 1990–Feb. 10, 1991, cat.; Cody, WY, Buffalo Bill Center, Mar. 1–May 17, 1991; South Bend, IN, University of Notre Dame, Snite Museum of Art, June 6–Sept. 22, 1991; Tulsa, Gilcrease Museum, Oct. 20–Dec. 29, 1991; Los Angeles, Autry Museum, Jan. 26–Mar. 14, 1992; Indianapolis, Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Apr. 7–May 31, 1992.
Tulsa, Gilcrease Museum, Taos Artists and Their Patrons, May 16–July 18, 1999, cat.; South Bend, IN, University of Notre Dame, Snite Museum of Art, Aug. 15–Nov. 14, 1999; Phoenix Art Museum, Dec. 11, 1999–Mar. 12, 2000; Albuquerque Museum, Apr. 16–July 16, 2000; San Antonio, McNay Art Museum, Aug. 13–Nov. 12, 2000 (Phoenix, Albuquerque, and San Antonio only).
Art Institute of Chicago, Window on the West: Chicago and the Art of the New Frontier, 1890–1940, June 28–Oct. 13, 2003, cat. 49.

The artist, Taos, NM, by Dec. 1923 [incoming receipt, R1365, Dec. 15, 1923; copy in curatorial object file]; partially sold and partially exchanged for The Pumpkin Girl (formerly sold to the Friends of American Art, Art Institute of Chicago, 1920), Jan. 29, 1924; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1924.

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