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During Holy Week thousands of pilgrims travel to the sacred ground of Chimayo, a historic sanctuary known as a healing place in the mountains of northern New Mexico.

Here the Sangre de Cristo Mountains envelop the pilgrims on their Holy Week journey.

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Victor Higgins

New Mexico Calvary

(Holy Week Procession), 1922

oil on canvas

34 ¼ x 36 in..

Sarah Belle Chambers Calvert Memorial Fund

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Victor Higgins was born William Victor Higgins in Shelbyville, Indiana.  His inspiration to paint came from an itinerant sign painter.  Higgins studied briefly at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts before traveling to Europe to continue his studies first at the Académie de la Grand Chaumiere in Paris and then in Munich.  After returning to Chicago Higgins went on a painting trip to Taos, New Mexico. The colorful life that he and his contemporaries found in New Mexico led to the formation of the Taos Society of Artists founded in 1915.  Higgins a member of the group and became a permanent resident of Taos, New Mexico. He primarily concentrated on painting the landscape but also had an established reputation for his striking portrayals of the Native Americans living in Taos.

Although Higgins painted portraits and figure studies, his reputation rests upon his landscapes of the Southwest.  The gently rounded hills of New Mexico Calvary show Higgins’ attention to the solid, sculptural forms of the mountainous terrain.  This canvas dates from the brief period during the 1920s when he experimented with figures in his compositions.  Higgins portrays Native Americans traveling through the desert towards a religious gathering.  The sky’s glowing pastel tones sound both a new day as well as the promise of spiritual renewal.

Reference

Rick Stewart.  The American West: Legendary Artists of the Frontier, Portland, OR: Hawthorne Publishing Company, 1986.  ISBN-13: 978-0961723804