Holiday Catalogue 2024 - 2025
Robert Oldham Biggs
American, 1920 - 1984
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BiographyRobert Oldham Biggs was a Texas-born painter whose life was shaped by hardship and resilience. Raised in an orphanage, he later served as a B-17 gunner in World War II, surviving three shootdowns before using the GI Bill to study painting at Washington University under Fred Conway and Philip Guston. Initially working in Abstract Expressionism, Biggs reportedly destroyed nearly 150 early canvases around 1950 and turned toward a highly personal style influenced by American Regionalism and Surrealism. His paintings often feature architectural forms threatened by elemental forces—wind, fire, or machinery—reflecting themes of instability and longing for security, yet rendered with a dreamlike humor and theatrical flair. Though he exhibited mainly in local galleries and struggled with health and alcohol throughout his life, Biggs gained regional recognition and was featured in the St. Louis Art Museum’s inaugural Currents exhibition in 1978.