Name/Title
Untitled, George Biddle PaintingEntry/Object ID
2022.2.85.2Description
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 the Oak Hill Cottage in Mansfield, Ohio hangs in the Big House living room and 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 1938-1941.
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 during 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.Location
Room
Living RoomBuilding
The Big HouseOhio State Park
Malabar Farm State Park