Lot 720: JOSEPH HIGGINS Daughter of Lir (c.1923) Bronze,

JOSEPH HIGGINS Daughter of Lir (c.1923) Bronze, 58.5cm high (23'') Literature: Joseph Higgins by Cork County Museum & Garden by Orla Murphy, 2005, illustrated page 44/45 Joseph Higgins is regarded by many to be the finest figurative sculptor to have emerged from Cork since John Hogan. Born in Ballincollig in 1885 just outside Cork ,his Father William was originally a teacher and historian until he lost his job after serving a term in prison after the Fenian Rising of 1867. Joseph originally got work as a clerk at the tea and coffee merchants Newsom & Sons where he became friendly with fellow worker Terence MacSwiney. Higgins soon got attracted to the Crawford School of art a few streets away and enrolled as a night student in 1906. He was to marry fellow student Katherine Turnbull in 1915 and they moved and settled in Youghal. Both won several prizes at the school and at exhibition including the Cork Exhibition Scholarship and the RDS and received good reviews at the RHA. Higgin's output was extremely small under 20 pieces in total . Two of his best known pieces ''Strachaire Fir'' and ''Toiler of the sea'' are in the Collection of The Crawford Gallery. This piece ''Daughter of Lir'' is really the only mythological works that he produced. The model was Ann Condon who lived nearby in Youghal at Ashton Court. The treatment of the work is more stylized than his other works depicting Ann as a swan-like daughter of Lir wearing a Celtic crown and is thought to date around 1923. Unfortunately Joseph suffered from TB and died at the young age of 40. His daughter Máighréad married the Cork sculptor Seamus Murphy and they championed his work bringing it to the attention of the wider public. Seamus Murphy said of Higgins' work ''it has a delight for everyone who looks at it,but a fellow craftsman gets even more than that,he sees how the material was respected.'' His work rarely comes on the open market - the last known piece to have come to auction was in the Kearney Collection Dec 2007 Cat. No. 45. Our thanks to Peter Murray whose essay in the Joseph Higgins Catalogue formed the main source material for this entry.