Charles Higa was born in Honolulu in 1933, the youngest of ten children of Yeikichi and Kame Higa, who had immigrated from Japan. From a young age, Higa had a penchant for drawing and would go on to study in the Art Department at the University of Hawai’i in 1951, a time when they had assembled an impressive faculty. Higa worked with and learned from graphic designer Kenneth Kingrey, painter Jean Charlot, art historian Gustav Ecke, artists Ben Norris, Sueko Kimura, and J. Halley Cox, and visiting professor Josef Albers. He was also introduced to ceramics via summer courses with Claude Horan, Harue McVay, and Isami Enomoto.
Upon finishing his undergraduate studies, Higa moved to New York to complete his master’s degree in art education in 1956. This was followed by a stint in the Army, after which he returned to Hawai’i and earned a Professional Teaching Certificate in 1960. By 1965, Higa landed a job at McKinley High School where he would teach drawing, painting, and ceramics until his retirement in 1987. He was not just a gifted artist, but a profoundly influential educator, winning Outstanding Young Educator in 1967, Teacher of the Year in 1970, and Outstanding Secondary Educator in 1974 and 1975. Following his retirement, he taught courses in adult education at Kapi’olani Community College until 2000.
The present lot hails from the collection of Paul Sakai and Thomas Tierney, who collect Higa’s work alongside those of Toshiko Takaezu. Beyond being admirers of Higa and Takaezu’s oeuvre, Sakai and Tierney were also friends with both artists. They owned a gallery in Hawaii and developed a personal connection with Higa, over time acquiring a variety of pieces exhibiting the diversity of Higa’s ceramic forms. His ceramics are both aesthetically pleasing and, as Sakai and Tierney note, very intentionally designed; Higa considered the use of each individual piece and their weight in hand during the creative process. Pieces are intentionally heavy, especially cups, which are meant to buffer heat from tea or coffee.
Be it sculptural or functional, each of Higa’s works display his impressive skills as both a painter and a ceramist. His sensitive brushwork, nuanced color palette, and modern forms deftly combine the worlds of fine art and craft. The selection offered is coming to the market for the first time since its acquisition directly from the artist.
One of the things I have most admired about the work of Charles Higa is the way in which his vision and his style...move so gracefully between ceramics and watercolor.
Marcia Morse
