COMPLIMENTARY COPY
Published Weekly By Joel Sater Publications www.antiquesandauctionnews.net
VOL. 43, NO. 50 FRIDAY DECEMBER 14, 2012
The Artistry Of Frances Higgins Fellowship, and advanced studies at Michael often worked around the Chicago’s Institute of Design. There clock in split shifts, meeting gift“ always liked making things.” she was introduced to Michael ware order deadlines for major retailers that included Marshall Frances Stewart Higgins Field’s and Bloomingdale’s. (1912-2004) Attempting to explain the nearly immediate (and enduring) popuAs a little girl growing up larity of Higgins glass, Fran in rural Georgia, glass artist once said, “We just try to Frances Higgins somemake what looks good— times passed the days anytime, in any place. This 9” bowl was a Things that are lasting, Fran favorite. The and can be enjoyed for bubbles in the glass, a years to come. We don’t natural result of fusing, were specifically follow fashion”. incorporated into From 1957 to 1964, the design. the Higgins were head-
In glass fusing, a drawn or pieced design is “sandwiched” between one or more layers of enameled glass; the glass sandwich is then heated on a mold, where it “slumps” to conform to the mold’s shape. Although working as a “joint design-personality”, Michael and Fran employed different techniques in creating their “unique objects of fused, constructing “flower enameled, molded viewers”. She’d dig glass.” Michael shallow holes at ranfavored “pieced” dom spots along fusing, glass Georgia byways, line segments them with the heads of arranged to colorful wildflowers, form an image then cover each hole with a within the glass sandpiece of clear glass. Once wich. Fran’s “drawn” earth was smoothed in to cover technique the glass edges, Fran’s flower focused on viewers were complete. When i m a g e s folks trudging along dusty Georgia Few works combine both hand-painted paths encountered them, they Michael’s “pieced” and in enamel, on received a jolt of unexpected visu- Fran’s “drawn” fused glass This one does. the interior glass panel. al pleasure. That was the idea. techniques. It’s “Fish Gotta Swim, Birds Over the years, how“Imagine”, Fran once told me with Gotta Fly”, with a Higgins-like ever, the Higgins glassa smile, “the looks on their faces.” couple walking into the sunset. making repertoire expandOn December 24, 2012, 17-1/2” d. ed tremendously. Said Fran, Frances Higgins would have cele“Michael and I kept experibrated her 100th birthday. She Higgins, Head of Visual Design. “Michael was firm in his opinmenting, learning by trial and spent her life providing the world error. We learned from each piece with jolts of unexpected pleasure, ions from the beginning”, noted that we made.” Among the many through her work, talent, and cap- Frances, “but so was I. And he was a q u a r tivating personality. It was simply very positive person. The people I tered at Dearborn Glass Company in innovations credited to Fran’s ongoimpossible not to like Fran; you knew before Michael were not inter- Bedford Park, Illinois. Adapting ing experimentation: • “Dropout” vases: when heated, wanted to spend as much time as ested in art, but Michael was. He lis- handcrafted glass techniques to the possible in her company. Soft-spo- tened to me.” Married on December demands of mass production, Fran the glass “drops out” of its ring ken and genteel, she possessed an 11, 1948, the couple then left the and Michael designed and super- mold, creating a vase-like shape. • “Flip Art”: actual vegetation is underlying determination, and a Institute, beginning their half-centu- vised the creation of Dearborn’s extensive line of “higginsware”. tapped in colored pigment, then work ethic that was unshakable. ry of dual artistry in glass. Described by art critic Paul Generally identified by a lower-case “flipped” against the glass to create a Down South, where she hailed from, they call ladies like Fran Hollister as “forerunners of the “higgins” signature in gold, the pattern. • “Frammies”: fused glass “steel magnolias”. It’s a compli- American studio glass movement”, Dearborn output brought the “paintings”, each ment, and one not with its own bestowed lightly. hand-crafted When coupled stamped frame. with a larger-than-life Although personality such as Michael Higgins Michael Higgins, her died in 1999, Fran husband and artistic never retired, concollaborator, Fran tinuing to work in could will herself into the studio until the background. But shortly before her that was always a death in 2004, conscious choice. “just doing the When the mood same sort of thing struck, she could also I was always take center stage and doing, but branchhold your attention ing out once in for as long as she awhile.” There liked. During the last never seemed to decade of her life, be enough hours when I was priviin the day to realleged to be both her ize all the artistic friend and biographimages that came er, she certainly held to her. “I don’t mine. know where I get Glassmates “Blue Fish in Chips Plaque”. The “chips” are bits of glass dropped into the mold. 10-1/2” w. x 5-1/2” h. $400 my ideas”, she Frances Stewart to $450. said, “but I get was born on December 24, 1912 in Haddock, the Higgins revived and refined the Higgins national acclaim, and them all the time, for this, that, and Georgia. She received her under- ancient craft of glass fusing. Their served as the cornerstone for today’s the other. It seems to me that they just come like a miracle. I just think graduate degree from Georgia “modern miracles with everyday robust Higgins collecting field. Following a short-lived stint at ‘I’m going to try this’, and then I State College for Women, and glass” transformed the ordinary, studied at Columbia and Ohio such as bowls, plates and ashtrays, Dundee’s Haeger Potteries, the do.” Looking back on her life’s work, State, before beginning a 14-year into housewares that were decora- Higgins opted to return to indepenteaching career that led to an assis- tive as well as useful. Glowing with dent studio work. In 1966, they Fran once observed “I think I was tant professorship in art at the color and imagination, Higgins glass moved to Riverside, Illinois, where born with this talent, and just kept the Higgins Glass Studio has been looking around until I found the best University of Georgia. Work on attracted buyers by the bushelsful. Initially based out of their located ever since. way to use it. This has been an interher master’s degree resulted in a Glasswork esting way to make a living. And Rockefeller Foundation Chicago apartment, Frances and By Donald-Brian Johnson
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even when times were hard, I never gave up. I’m not a g i v e r upper.” Glassified Info I loved listening to Fran tell stories about her early days, about her work, about what interested her— and everything interested her. Even when “Bubbles”, a freefloating sculpture, constructed of multicolor glass circles and chip glass “foam”, mounted on a brass stem. “You have to be careful handling this one”, said Fran. 13” h., $1,500 to $1,700.
looking at photos of pieces made at the dawn of her career, she had cler-asglass memories of each and every one: “here’s how we made that”. . . .”gosh, that one’s pretty”. . . .and even, “that piece was hell to do”. Her comments were down-toearth, entertaining, and always informative: • “When I was a young girl, I made all kinds of things. I’d make clothes for my dolls. My mother sewed a lot, and I would just drive her crazy. ‘Can I have this scrap?’ I’d say, and she’d say ‘wait ‘til I get through, please, Fran.’” • “My mother was the only one of my family interested in art. She did a drawing of a storm, a big drawing, with the lightning striking and all. It was a good drawing. She’d had eleven art lessons. She used to always say that, ‘I had eleven art lessons.’ But then she couldn’t do any more.” • “Michael and I almost starved to death when we first started out. One time a sales agent from New York asked if we’d make things for him, but we didn’t do so well; our pieces were hard to sell. The agent said, ‘the trouble with you two is you make everything too sophisticated. You’re too far ahead of your time.’ But we didn’t know how to make it differently.” • “With our type of work, you have to see not just what you are doing, but what it’s going to look like when it’s all done. You have to see that in your mind.” • “I’m pleased with most of the things I’ve made. I don’t have ‘favorites’, but there are always certain things about certain pieces that I like. Of course, there are some where I think ‘oh, I wish I hadn’t done that, I wish I hadn’t’. But I’m not going to tell you which ones! Because really, I don’t even remember the ones that aren’t right. If it doesn’t turn out, I go on to something else. When people like what you do, you can do that.” • “I didn’t think I would live this long, but luckily there’s always something new to try. One day, one (Continued on page 2)