The Battery, Evening

A native of Philadelphia, George Biddle graduated from Harvard Law School in 1911. He was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar the same year, but instead he decided to pursue a career in art. From 1911 to 1916, Biddle studied in Europe and America at the Académie Julian in Paris and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He learned printmaking in Munich and spent summers in Giverny with Frederick Frieseke. After serving in the army during World War I, Biddle traveled extensively visiting Tahiti, Mexico, and Paris. In 1930, Biddle was commissioned by George and Ira Gershwin to illustrate the libretto for "Porgy and Bess." He spent that spring in Charleston where he became friends with DuBose Heyward. Charleston and its cultural reawakening inspired Biddle, and he created a number of paintings of life in the Lowcountry, including "The Battery, Evening."