BECOMING PABLO O'HIGGINS
by Susan Vogel
"Love Mexico always as Pablo O'Higgins loved it with tenderness and passion." — Vicente Fox, President of Mexico, 2005
Becoming Pablo O'Higgins is the intriguing story of how a blond-haired, blue-eyed Presbyterian from Salt Lake City, Utah became a celebrated Mexican muralist. Born Paul Higgins in 1904, O'Higgins traveled to Mexico City in 1924 to see the mural renaissance involving Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros. He became an assistant to Diego Rivera, working with him on some of his most important murals. O'Higgins co-founded one of the world's most famous graphic art workshops, the Taller de Gráfica Popular. O'Higgins lived in Mexico for the rest of his life, but retained his U.S. citizenship until 1961, enabling him to produce murals and graphic art in both the U.S. and Mexico.
O'Higgins has become an inspiration to Latino and Chicano artists in the U.S. His portrait is included in a mural in Chicano Park, San Diego, alongside those of Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Pablo Picasso, Che Guevara, Emiliano Zapata, and the Virgin of Guadalupe.
Becoming Pablo O'Higgins is the first biography of O'Higgins in English. It reveals extensive, well-researched information on O'Higgins never before published.
AUTHOR Susan Vogel is a freelance writer and scholar and recipient of a grant from the Utah Humanities Council to research and write about O'Higgins.
330 pages, 55 illustrations
Cover design by Ana Esmee Design
Cover image by Steve Murin (O"Higgins painting mural in Hawai'i for ILWU, 1952)
PRESS KIT: click here for English
SLC LAUNCH EVENT PRESS RELEASE: click here
SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA LAUNCH : http://www.booksinc.net/event/susan-vogel
ISBN: 978-1-930074-21-7
LCCN: 2010902147
PRICE: US $ 24.95
COMMENTS ON BECOMING PABLO O'HIGGINS:
"A fine piece of work with an engrossing narrative."
— John Charlot, Vice President, the Jean Charlot Foundation, University of Hawai'i
"Becoming Pablo O'Higgins unveils with outstanding skill the real person and the artist behind the legend, who participated very closely with Diego Rivera, the tower of the revolutionary artists in Mexico. With this masterful work, which involved very serious research and a deep understanding of the cultural and political environment that prevailed on both sides of the border in the times of Pablo O'Higgins, Susan Vogel has made a very important contribution to a better understanding between the U.S. and Mexico."
— Salvador Jiménez, former Mexican Consul to Utah
“Exhaustively researched, Becoming Pablo O’Higgins examines the complex personality of Pablo O’Higgins and his participation in the vibrant and often volatile twentieth century political art movement in Mexico. Vogel traces O’Higgins’s life as an American artist at the center of Mexican politics—an ideal time and setting to serve the leftist ideals in which he believed and to escape a personal past that he held in contempt. Unraveling O’Higgins’s true identity, this fascinating narrative weaves together some of the most powerful personalities in international politics and art.
—Donna L. Poulton, Ph.D., Curator, Pablo O’Higgins: Works on Paper, Utah Museum of Fine Arts, 2010; co-author, Painters of Utah’s Canyons and Deserts; co-author, Utah Art, Utah Artists: 150 Years Survey; and co-author, Painters of Utah’s Mountain and Basin Regions
“A masterful job. This is an ambitious piece of writing, well researched and well done. The research alone is exhaustive and I’ve no doubt that this book will be a major contribution to the field.”
—Diana Anhalt, author of A Gathering of Fugitives: American Political Expatriates in Mexico 1948-1965
RECENT PRESS:
"'Becoming' in this case refers to more than just the usual drama of turning oneself into an artist. How Paul Stevenson Higgins, born in Salt Lake and scion of an Irish-American family, transformed himself into a revolutionary Mexican painter and printmaker is the stuff of legend, but it also cries out for meticulous documentation to separate the more mythic elements from the knowable facts. Susan Vogel has done this hard work, aided by her intimate familiarity with Mexican culture and language. More importantly in this writer’s opinion, she combines traits that rarely coexist in the same writer: she is able to excavate the written documentary story, but also to see and appreciate the visual documents that are the works of art created by O’Higgins and his contemporaries. Such a happy combination of skills is not as common in art as one would expect—indeed, might well take for granted. Yet while sifting through the known facts and finding reasonable explanations for some of O’Higgins less-readily-grasped motives (his marriage, his surrendering of dual-citizenship), Vogel also presents some convincing analyses and arguments about the development of the man’s art."
— Geoff Wichert, 15 Bytes, http://artistsofutah.org/15bytes/2010/05/susan_vogel_on_radio_west.html
On May 14, Susan Vogel was interviewed by Jennifer Napier-Pearce of Radio West, an hour-long program of public radio station and NPR charter member KUER, on the campus of the University of Utah.
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kuer/news.newsmain/article/0/184/1649717/RadioWest/51410.Pablo.O'Higgins
Ehren Clark, "New book and UMFA exhibit shed light on one of Utah's lesser known artistic sons," 15 Bytes, May 10, 2010, (http://www.artistsofutah.org/15bytes/10may/page6.html)
Reinaldo Escobar, "Un clasico de la literatura chicana," El Observador, April 24-25, 2010
"Convirtiendose en Pablo O´Higgins, el libro," The Whole Enchilada, April 26, 2010.,
http://www.dchm.info/?p=1194
"The Intriguing Story of Muralist Pablo O'Higgins Told in New Book,"
Art News Daily, www.http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp, April 25, 2010
Ben Fulton, "Utah Museum of Fine Arts: Utah-born artist, with Mexican Heart - New book and exhibition explore Mexico's best-known Utah artist," The Salt Lake Tribune, April 12, 2010 (quoting Susan Vogel)
Carma Wadley, "Utah Artist Pablo O'Higgins' works are featured in exhibit in his native Utah," Deseret News, March 27, 2010 (mentioning Becoming Pablo O'Higgins)
"Presentan obras del pintor y muralista Pablo O'Higgins en Utah," Yahoo Mexico, March 23, 2010 (quoting Susan Vogel)
Austin Diamond, "Pablo O'Higgins, Work on Paper," Salt Lake City Weekly, March 3, 2010, quoting Susan Vogel.
César Arredondo, "Pintor encarinado con Mexico," Ahora Utah, February 25, 2010, quoting Susan Vogel.
Steve Coons, "Exhibit shows artist's love for Mexico," Daily Utah Chronicle, February 24, 2010, quoting Susan Vogel.
"Montan muestra de Pablo O"Higgins en Utah," www-diario.com, February 23, 2010 (quoting Susan Vogel)
Reinaldo Escobar, "Un americano muy mexicano," El Observador, February 21, 2010, quoting Susan Vogel.
Dan Nailen, "They call him ... Pablo," Salt Lake Magazine, February 19, 2010 (mentioning book).