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Ernest Higgins Rigg | The potato pickers

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Ernest Higgins Rigg | The Potato Pickers | Bradford Museums and Galleries

Ernest Higgins Rigg (1868-1947) was a British painter of rural genre, landscapes and portraits.
Rigg was born in Bradford and studied at the School of Art there and then at the Academie Julian in Paris.
He first visited Staithes in 1896 and lodged in Hinderwell at Quaker Garth and later stayed at the village’s Commercial Hotel.

He moved to Sussex in 1908, but returned to Yorkshire after the First World War, living in Shipley in 1918 and Richmond in 1919.
His brothers, Alfred and Arthur H. were both artists.


His work, almost exclusively in oils, is very concerned with light.
It often appears veritably to bounce off the surface of objects in his pictures, but he explores all aspects of the phenomenon: frequently it lights the middle distance, sometimes it pervades the whole picture and occasionally strong shadows are cast, intensifying colors.
He enjoyed including children in his compositions and sometimes veered towards sentimentality.


He was a founder member of the Staithes Art Club and a lively member of the social group of artists in and around the village.
He was elected a Council Member of the Yorkshire Union of Artists in 1899.
His work is in public galleries in Bradford, Sheffield and Whitby.
He exhibited at the Walker Gallery Liverpool, Manchester City Art Gallery, the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of British Artists and the Yorkshire Union of Artists.


Ernest Higgins Rigg (1868-1947) è stato un pittore Britannico di genere rurale, paesaggi e ritratti.

Higgins Rigg è nato a Bradford, nello Yorkshire, dove studiò, e presso l'Académie Julian di Parigi.
Le sue piacevoli scene all'aperto rispecchiavano la pittura francese di fine Ottocento.

Espose alla Royal Academy, alla Royal Bank of England (RBA), alla Walker Art Gallery di Liverpool ed altrove, lavorando in molte parti dell'Inghilterra.
Fu membro dello Staithes Group e fu incluso nella mostra di opere collettive di Phillips annd Sons a Marlow nel 1983.
Visse per un periodo a Letchworth, nell'Hertfordshire.