J. Thomas R. Higgins

Painting for Tom Higgins is an active and intuitive process of participating in natural spaces through direct sensory experience. Through his expressive mark-making and gestural brushstrokes he strives for the point when all of the elements have meshed into an essential, emotive image.

Tom Higgins was born in Trenton, New Jersey and grew up in New Hope, Pennsylvania. He graduated cum laude from Maryville College in Tennessee and received an MS and MFA in painting and drawing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Higgins has taught at Marietta College, Colby College, the University of Maine, the University of Southern Maine, and the University of Maine at Farmington, having retired from UMF as Professor Emeritus. He has exhibited at galleries throughout Maine, as well as in Ohio, Massachusetts, New York, Florida, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, California, and elsewhere in the United States. Additionally, Higgins’ work has been shown internationally through the Department of State Art-in-Embassies Program at the following American Embassies: Athens, Greece; Paris, France; Banjul, Gambia; Reykjavik, Iceland; Budapest, Hungary; Ottawa, Canada. From 1990-1992 he participated in Plaidoyer pour la Terre (For the Defense of the Earth), a traveling exhibition that was shown in numerous cities in France, including at Galerie du Grande Palais in Paris. In 1988 he had several solo exhibitions in and around Budapest, Hungary. Two years later he returned to Budapest and engaged in the First Europ’Art Meeting Hungary, following the collapse of the communist regime.

Higgins’ paintings have been represented in numerous corporate and private collections that include the following: Art Bank, Department of State, Washington, DC; American Council on Education, Washington, DC; Bates College Museum of Art; the University of Southern Maine; Prudential Insurance Company of America; Norma B. Marin Collection of Maine Art; Casco Northern Bank Collection; King Faisal Conference Center, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Bank of America; Portland Museum of Art. Residencies for which Higgins was selected include Acadia National Park and the Joseph A. Fiore Art Center.

Books that have featured Higgins’ paintings include the following: The Art of Maine in Winter; On Wilderness: Voices from Maine; Paintings of Maine; Art of Katahdin; Ripple Effect: Water Stories.

Higgins continues to be an outdoor enthusiast, capturing dynamic, animated landscapes full of painterly energy.

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