George Biddle

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George Biddle (January 24, 1885 - November 6, 1973) was an American artist. He was born in Philadelphia on January 24, 1885. He was a good artist who went through many art movements in his life and served in the United States Army. Biddle did not pursue his career in painting until after he had graduated from Harvard, where he received his degree in law in 1911. Biddle was also a classmate with Franklin D. Roosevelt at Groton School. Biddle died on November 6, 1973 in Croton-on-Hudson, New York.

Biddle put in his “personal feelings- affection, humor, compassion, irony, social outrage-as well as his technical mastery of the lithographic medium” to “enliven his work”^[1].

1 Biography
2 Catfish Row
3 Influences
4 Conclusion
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Biography

In 1921 Biddle went to New York and started up a lithographic printing shop. Here he made this his focal point of his career. Biddle liked making lithographs; he “began to explore the variety and richness of technique and expressionism possible in lithography”^[1]. His lithograph image, “Catfish Row”, looks like Biddle used crayon on a rough surface and drew the scene. One reason why Biddle used lithographs was to “popularize American art by making it better known to the American public”^[1]. In order to do this it is necessary to print or make many lithographs and sell them as they are demanded. “One way…is to distribute as widely as possible first class reproductions of worthy originals”^[1].

Biddle had not started to get training and schooling in fine arts until after graduating from Harvard. Biddle decided to pursue a career in fine arts; he had training from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and at the Académie Julian in Paris. He had also gone on a lengthy trip to sketch the first American opera Porgy and Bess. Biddle’s achievements and commitment was noticed by many, so he wrote to his former classmate Franklin D. Roosevelt, now President and stated the significance of “state-sponsored art”^[2]. George Biddle had also learned many new things about art, but not in a school. He said, “I gobbled up museums, French Impressionism, cubism, futurism, and the old masters; I copied Velasquez in Madrid and Rubens in Munich….”^[1]. All the traveling and meetings that Biddle had done gave him lessons on what to do and not to do. Biddle had learned many lessons from life and observing other artists from around the world.

[edit] Catfish Row

Biddle painted a beautiful image called “Catfish Alley,” (later the name was changed to “Catfish Row” by American Artists Group when they published it). “Catfish Row” is a lithograph image. George Biddle uses many techniques on this painting which makes it more unique and attractive. The painting is in all black and white, the artist uses light and dark shading to give it a three-dimensional feel. The scene captured is of a group of individuals walking, sitting and playing outside their houses. In "Catfish Row" there is nothing about the image that is abnormal or fantasy. Atmospheric perspective is also used: the objects in the background are less detailed and almost blurry compared with the objects in the front of the painting. The overall spacing of the painting is crowded; almost every inch of the painting is used up with an object or person. The scene Biddle painted seems to take place in the evening; all of the adult figures in the image seem tired and ready to settle down for the night. The expressions on the figures' faces are exhausted from a day of work, but they have to keep an eye on the children out at play. The children look lively because it is cool and they get to play after school or working too. All the lines in the painting are choppy, but delicate and placed carefully. Biddle must have used quick strokes or a small tool to make the image look like it had been sandblasted or made on a rough surface.

The scene and the message of the painting are very clear and realistic. Biddle must have painted a scene when he was out traveling the world during hard times for African Americans. “Biddle’s subject, reflecting the interest in portraying aspects of the American scene felt by many artists at this time, is drawn from his 1930 visit to Charleston”^[1]. He liked to capture scenes that were of the time and how people saw the world. Most of his paintings, lithographs, and drawings were of real events or portraits. These images told a message about what was going on in the world, whether it was in the US or in another country. The effects and techniques that were used help express the message that Biddle was trying to say about the time period for this culture. “The subjects Biddle depicted included portraits of his family and friends, scenes based on his extensive travels, commentaries on political and national events and reflections on the human condition”^[1].

[edit] Influences

Some factors that contributed to Biddle’s artwork are the many art movements that he was involved in. Biddle was involved in “French Impressionism; the American Aschan School; the School of Paris and Cubism during those early and exciting days when it first exploded on the world; Regionalism, the Mexican Mural Movement, and the New Deal Subsidy of Art”^[3]. He also was involved in the “post war currents of contemporary art”^[3]. Many of his works of art were contemporary. Another factor that contributed to Biddle’s artwork were his friendships with many great “painters, sculptors, and critics of the past generation and his life-long activity in behalf of fellow artists”^[3]. He borrowed many of the other artists' styles and turned them into his own by using different techniques and images to get a different effect. Biddle believed that everyone’s life should be influenced by every “fact with which one comes in contact, until one ceases to grow or is, actually dead”^[1]. This is the reason why Biddle became such a successful American artist; he had his own style, and expressed real actual events.

A further influence on Biddle was Mary Cassat. Biddle met Cassat at the Académie Julian in Paris; she too was from Philadelphia. Cassat helped to cultivate in Biddle an appreciation of the work of Degas. Some of Biddle’s prints reflected “the style of these two artists in their intimate, domestic subject matter”^[1].

[edit] Conclusion

George Biddle was a great artist; he achieved a lot of goals that helped other artists make their way. His work serves as a “kind of index to the many style ant themes which occupied artists in the first half of the 20th century”^[1]. When Biddle volunteered to go to the war, it changed his whole life and how he saw the world. He got to travel the country and study different cultures of art; by doing this he was able to produce a wide range of art. Biddle captured scenes and people how they naturally are in life. “Catfish Row” is a good example of Biddle capturing people and objects in their natural and normal state. “Rejecting the stale formulas of academism and critical of what he saw as a loss of articulate emotional expressionism in much of modernist art, Biddle grappled with his own artistic identity throughout his life”^[1].

[edit] References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k Pennigar, Martha. The Graphic Work of George Biddle with Catalogue Raisonne. Baltimore, Maryland: Garamond/Pridemark Press, 1979.
^ Ladis, Andrew. “George Biddle, Raphael Soyer, and the Genius with a Thousand Faces”, Traditional Fine Arts Organization 2005: 2-. Resource Library. March 8, 2006.
^ ^a ^b ^c Biddle, George. The Yes and No of Contemporary Art. London: Oxford University Press, 1957.