E.F. Higgins III

E.F. Higgins III (b. 1949, d. 2021) embodies the community of visual artists that were so important to the fabric of the Lower East Side during the 1980s and 90s. Growing up in a small town located outside Chicago, Higgins refined his talent at assembling models. In conjunction with his interest in crafts, Higgins incorporated collecting stamps into his work – later becoming an integral theme throughout his artistic career.

Higgins majored in Fine Arts at Western Michigan University until two weeks before graduation, when he decided to discontinue his schooling. However, Higgins later majored in Painting and Printmaking at the University of Colorado in the 1970s, where he created artworks composed of letterheads, postcards, maps, blueprints, posters, and stamps.

Shortly after graduating with a BFA and MFA in Painting and Printmaking, Higgins moved to a rent-stabilized tenement style studio on Ludlow Street, where he resided for nearly 45 years. Working alongside notable artists such as FA-Q (Kevin Wendell), Toyo Tsuchiya, and Cowboy Ray Kelly, Higgins founded the movement of emerging street artists known as ‘The Rivington School’, based in the Lower East Side in the 1980s.

The Rivington School focused particularly on combining sculptural mediums such as metal work, collage, and paint; leading them to be recognized by many in the Lower East Side for their sculpture gardens. In what became a hallmark of the Downtown aesthetic, artists would repurpose trash, building monumental structures that would sometimes house some of the artists. The Rivington School is often considered the last avant-garde art movement in New York City before postmodernism. It represents the collaborative effort amongst artists to establish a creative refuge amidst the gentrification and crime of an ever changing New York City urban playground.

Mail art, or correspondence art, is characterized by its small-scale works spread through the postal service. As a mail artist at his core, Higgins utilized nontraditional art materials and commercial imagery to create works that spoke to the familiar and inviting concept of communication. It was this that inspired Higgins to pursue correspondence art more fully after moving to NYC. Higgins turned many of his paintings into stamps, and much of his art came from correspondences between fellow mail artists including Ray Johnson, Buster Cleveland, Anna Banana, and others.

In his own words: “to me, artists’ stamps is an art form. The mail art network opened the doors; across countries, across borders, creative beings could communicate with one another, circumventing the traditional gallery, art business, money-fame game.”