Name/Title
George Biddle PaintingDescription
Between 1945 and 1959, Biddle executed a series of watercolor paintings using prominent and recognizable Mansfield, Ohio, and Richland County, Ohio locales as subjects. This George Biddle painting of Lucas, Ohio hanging upstairs in the Big House may be from this series.Context
George Biddle was born in Mansfield, Ohio, on November 16, 1919. He graduated from Mansfield Senior High School in 1938 and attended the Cleveland School of Art from 1938-to 1941.
In 1942, Biddle left Cleveland to study at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. Drafted into the military during the Second World War, Biddle served from 1942 to 1945. After his discharge in 1945, he went to Chicago, where between 1945 and 1946, he studied with the famous painter and photographer Moholy-Nagy. Biddle's early work was abstract but still was composed of recognizable imagery. Over the years, as his interests expanded, his paintings became more abstract and eventually non-objective. In some of this later work, Biddle even experimented with elements of abstract expressionism.
On September 3, 1959, George Biddle died of a heart attack at his home in the Pinhook area of southern Richland County, less than two miles from Malabar Farm. He was only 39 years old and on the cusp of national recognition.
- Adapted from research and text by Thomas Bachelder of the Malabar Farm FoundationLocation
Building
The Big HouseOhio State Park
Malabar Farm State Park
