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Alphaeus Philemon Cole (1876-1988) Portrait of Eugene Higgins, Aged 80 image 1
Alphaeus Philemon Cole (1876-1988) Portrait of Eugene Higgins, Aged 80 image 2
Alphaeus Philemon Cole (1876-1988) Portrait of Eugene Higgins, Aged 80 image 3
Alphaeus Philemon Cole (1876-1988) Portrait of Eugene Higgins, Aged 80 image 4
A PRIVATE NEW ENGLAND COLLECTION
Lot 158

Alphaeus Philemon Cole
(1876-1988)
Portrait of Eugene Higgins, Aged 80

26 September – 7 October 2025, 12:00 EDT
Skinner Marlborough, Massachusetts

Sold for US$1,152 inc. premium

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Alphaeus Philemon Cole (1876-1988)

Portrait of Eugene Higgins, Aged 80
signed and dated 'Alphaeus P. Cole N.A. 1954' (lower right); identified on a handwritten label (affixed to the stretcher)
oil on canvas
30 1/4 x 25 1/4 in. (76.8 x 64.1 cm)
Painted in 1954.

Footnotes

N.B.
Alphaeus Philemon Cole was born in New Jersey and studied art in Paris. He primarily exhibited in New York, and continued to show his paintings until age 103. Until his death he was the oldest verified living man on earth and the oldest living person in the United States.

The subject of this portrait is the artist Eugene Higgins (1874-1958). Higgins was a painter and printmaker whose work was inspired by the subjects and styles of artists like Jean-François Millet and Honoré Daumier, exploring notions of class, revolution, and urban life. He was trained in the French Academic style at the École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian in Paris - likely alongside Cole - and developed a reputation for his sympathetic, probing portraits of the poor. Upon moving to New York in 1905 he continued to produce work that examined lower-class subjects, this time in the context of urban life.

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