Cecil Higgs was born in the Orange Free State and finished her schooling in Grahamstown. She studied briefly at the Grahamstown School of Art before all educational institutions were closed in 1917 because of the Spanish influenza epidemic. In 1920, she went to study at Goldsmiths' College in London, and from 1926, at the Royal Academy under Walter Sickert. Higgs also spent some time at the Académ