Dick Higgins (1938-1998)

“I find I never feel quite complete unless I’m doing all the arts-- visual, musical and literary. I guess that’s why I developed the term ‘intermedia,’ to cover my works that fall conceptually between these.”

-- Dick Higgins

Born Richard Carter Higgins in Cambridge, England, March 15, 1938.

Schooled at Hickory Ridge School (Putney, Vermont), St. Paul’s School (Concord, New Hampshire), North High School (Worcester, Mas­sachusetts), Yale College (New Haven, Connecticut), Columbia Uni­versity (New York, BS in English, 1960), and Manhattan School of Printing (New York).

Musical studies with John Cage and Henry Cowell, 1958-9.

Co-founded Happenings, 1958.

Married Alison Knowles, 1960 (divorced 1970, remarried 1984).

Co-founded Fluxus, 1962.

Founded Something Else Press, 1963 (left it 1973, it became bankrupt 1974).

Twin daughters Hannah and Jessica born, 1964 

Named and developed concept of Intermedia, 1965.

Operated Something Else Gallery, 1966-9 (curated first US exhibition of concrete poetry, 1966).

Begins The Thousand Symphonies, 1968.

Taught at California Institute of the Arts, 1970-1 (interdisciplinary appointment).

Moved to West Glover, Vermont, 1971.

Founded and ran Unpublished Editions, 1972-85 (renamed “Printed Editions,” 1978; dis­continued,1985).

7.7.73 silkscreen monoprints and paintings series (1973-5).

Graduate studies at New York University, 1975-9 (MA in English LIterature, 1977).

Fellow at Center for Twentieth Century Studies, University of Wisconsin at Mil­waukee, 1977.

Member of Literature Panel, New York State Council on the Arts, 1979-81.

Moved to Barrytown, New York, 1980 (retained Soho loft with Alison Knowles).

DAAD Fellowship in Berlin, 1981-2.

Began project of collecting and documenting pattern poetry (1981). Culminated in publica­tion by State University of New York Press of Pattern Poetry: Guide to an Unknown Literature (1987).

Focus on painting, 1981-1998. Arrow paintings, 1981-7. Map paintings, 1988-9. Brown paint­ings, 1989-90. Blue cosmologies, 1990. Natural Histories, 1991- 1993. Buster Keaton series, 1994.

Research Associate in Visual Arts, SUNY-Purchase, Purchase, NY, 1983-9.

Included in São Paolo Bienale (Brazil), 1984.

Visiting Clark Professor in Art for Autumn Term, Williams College, 1987; Research Associ­ate in History of Art, 1989-1998.

Included in Fluxus presentation at Venice Biennale, 1989.

Fellowship at Banff Centre, Banff, Alberta, Canada, Autumn 1990.

Begins Buster Keaton Enters Into Paradise, 1991 (published 1994).

Awarded Pollock-Krasner grant, 1993.

Salzburger Sommerakademie teaching appointment, Salzburg Austria, Summer 1993.

Saint Columba (work for string orchestra, chimes and large chorus) performed at Wesleyan University, December 1994.

Retrospective exhibition of art work and films: Ina Blom, Curator. Henie-Onstad Museum, Høvikodden, Norway, opened January 14, 1995. April 8 at Poori Taidenmuseo, Pori, Finland and March 16, 1996 at Center for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, Poland. Catalog published.

Retrospective show, Archivio di Nuova Scrittura, Milano. Giorgio Zanchetti, Curator. Opened October 18, 1995 (different from Oslo retrospective). Catalog published.

Digital Design at Lund University Sweden teaching appointment, February 1997 and History of Graphic Arts, April-May 1998.

Dies October 25, 1998 Quebec City, Canada while attending Art Action 1958-1998 colloquium.