Avis Higgs

Avis Winifred Higgs (21 September 1918 – 14 October 2016) was a New Zealand textile designer and painter.

Education

Higgs was born in 1918 in Wellington into a family of artists. Both her great grandfather and her grandfather were highly regarded Tasmanian landscape painters. Avis’s father, Sydney Higgs, was a well-known Wellington watercolourist who exhibited at the New Zealand Academy of Arts between 1921 and 1971. She attended Wellington East Girls' College and in February 1936 enrolled at the Art School of Wellington Technical College. In 1937 Higgs was awarded second place in a poster design competition organised by the Wellington Council of the League of Nations, and was described by the director of the school as "one of our best senior students". Higgs was awarded a 'Special Art Scholarship' at the end of the 1937 academic year. She did not complete her course in design but was recommended by one of her tutors for a design position at National Distributors Ltd in Wellington, where Higgs undertook lettering and poster design work and learned the principles of screenprinting.

New Zealand career

Higgs returned to New Zealand in 1948 and worked as a commercial artist at Screens Advertising, a company which designed cinema advertisements.

Recognition alt=Words etched into a concrete paver by Avis Higgs. They say "Best lesson learnt: to be myself and follow my own ideas rather than follow others." 1937: Second place in League of Nations' national poster design competition for the best poster symbolising peace.

1945: Commonwealth Government commendation from the Australian Federal Treasurer and Prime Minister Ben Chifley, received for her work designing textiles for the war effort with Victory Loan campaign slogans.

1964: Winner of the National Bank of New Zealand Art award for watercolour painting.

1968: Special Merit prize from the National Bank of New Zealand for watercolour painting.

1985: Winner of the IBM New Zealand Fine Arts Award.

In 2006 Higgs was awarded the Governor-General’s Art Award for her contribution to New Zealand art, and given a retrospective of her work at the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts.

Higgs was inducted into the College of Creative Arts Toi Rauwharangi (Massey University) Hall of Fame in 2010, along with ceramicist Manos Nathan. Higgs has also been named as one of the five most important Australian designers in the 20th century by the Australian Ministry of Culture.

Exhibitions 1999: The Eighties Show, The Dowse Art Museum 2000: Avis Higgs: joie de vivre, Hawke's Bay Museum and Art Gallery (now MTG Hawke's Bay)