Michael and Frances Higgins established their eponymous glass studio in 1948, in their small Chicago apartment, from where they both made (with three kilns set up behind their sofa) and sold their bright and joyous fused glass works. Together, they revitalized this ancient practice, which by the twentieth century, had been displaced in favor of blown glass. Fused glass is less demanding in terms of the special tools it requires (though is very labor-intensive) and is made by directly melting pieces of glass onto others in a kiln until they fuse into a single piece; shapes are achieved by molds that the glass "slumps" over.
The Higgins' modern, graphic approach to the medium won them early admirers and they began to sell their wares at Georg Jensen, Merchandise Mart and Marshall Field's. In 1957, as demand grew for their dishes, ashtrays, lamps, rondelay screens, "framies", jewelry and mobiles, they enlisted the help of Dearborn Glass Company outside of Chicago to manufacture their works on a greater scale.
"Our ideas have so blended that we can’t always tell which pieces are hers and which are mine."
—Michael Higgins
Finding mass-production challenging and too distant from the creative process, Michael and Frances re-established their own (larger) home studio in Riverside, Illinois. All of their works are signed simply "higgins", as they were equal collaborators on the body of work they built. Both continued to create glass works into their nineties and The Higgins Studio carries on today, under the direction of their chosen successors, championing the legacy of these two devoted and expressive artists.
Beloved to family and friends, as well as the Chicago art and design community, Fern Moss Kalai—also known as Fern Simon—passed away on February 16, 2024. Yet her legacy as a passionate collector and a knowledgeable dealer lives on through the many people she touched plus the enduring influence of her longstanding retail boutique, Arts 220.
In many ways, Fern was born into her eventual vocation. Along with her twin brother, the acclaimed design expert, Murray Moss, and her late sister, Jean Moss, an award-winning Esquire portrait photographer, Fern was raised in an aesthetically focused atmosphere by her mother and father. “My parents had remarkable and prescient visual acumen,” Fern told Chicago Tribune Magazine in 2009, “and passed it on to us, so there must be a genetic component involved.” Her father was Merton Moss, an engineer who invented and manufactured X-ray machines. His “hard-core, ultra-modern industrial ideals” contrasted in a stimulating manner with the playful outlook of Fern's mother, Ann, in which the lively unruliness of art often prevailed over logical design imperatives.
If someone were to ask me did I know my twin sister Fern well, given we lived our adult lives in different cities, I would have to say I didn’t know, but I, like most everybody who knew her, suspected so, hoped so.
Certainly I knew her the longest. We grew up comfortably together in my mother’s womb and yet she was the one who left first, diving into the world headfirst, leaving me alone on March 29, 1949, for six minutes until I had to come looking for her, I’m sure inspired by a pre-natal excitement she triggered even then—as well as a curiosity and her faith that there was a world out there rich with the complimentary contradictions she so loved.
It was the first time and I believe the only time I lost her even for a moment. Until now.
But in following her for 75 years, I early on found evidence of her looking almost everywhere, in every direction, determined to find a signpost that one would find at a junction in the road, with a hundred different arrows pointing to “Modernism, German Expressionism, Brutalism, Abstraction, Giuseppe Napoli, Picasso, Maarten Baas, Portanier.”
Fern delighted in the richness of human artistry—Fern was looking for the best way to get lost, to wander further and further into unknown, or known but overlooked, ideas expressed in art and design by famous and unfamous creators.
Please understand: Fern Moss was not a Collector. She was a Guide, with an ever-blooming passion for art, a visceral connection to historic and diverse ways of thinking and to the unique ways artists expressed that thinking. Fern led the way for many of us into the human heart that she was able to unearth in art.
Auction Results Michael and Frances Higgins
_1720727584.png "Fern with her husband, Ehud, at Ravinia in Highland Park, Illinois. Photo courtesy of Fern Moss Kalai via Instagram")
_1720727700.png "Fern at home. Photo courtesy of Fern Moss Kalai via Instagram")
