Harvest
Artist
George Biddle
(American, 1885-1973)
CultureAmerican
Date1932
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions61 x 80 in. (154.9 x 203.2 cm)
Overall, Frame: 61 3/4 x 81 3/4 in. (156.8 x 207.6 cm)
Overall, Frame: 61 3/4 x 81 3/4 in. (156.8 x 207.6 cm)
InscribedSigned and dated lower left: ;
Biddle;
1932
Credit LineGift of the Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.
Object number71.833
Not on view
DescriptionThis is a large oil on canvas painting. There are four figures on the right, in the foreground: two women, one with a baby on her lap, and a man sit on a triangle of grass in between a tree and some boulders. In the mid-ground, a man is plowing with two white oxen. Behind him are three laborers all in similar stance, bent at the hip, working in the fields. The sky is blue with angular clouds, not unlike waves. The palette hues are soft and blend into each other at some points, while other areas are more linear.Label TextGeorge Biddle American (1885-1973) Harvest, 1932 Oil on canvas Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 71.833 In 1930 George and Ira Gershwin asked George Biddle to illustrate the libretto for their folk opera Porgy and Bess. That spring he traveled to Charleston, South Carolina, to make drawings of the local residents. From there, Biddle went on to Italy where he made nearly fifty oil paintings based on his South Carolina drawings. Among the largest and most successful of these is the mural-sized Harvest, a work that signals the beginning of his mature style. In a 1932 review in the New York Times, Edward Alden Jewell singled out the work for special praise, calling it "a splendidly organized picture," and praising its "essential humanity" and distinctive figure style. Born into one of Philadelphia's richest and most prominent families, Biddle used his art to promote the cause of America's common man during the Great Depression. Struck by the artistic power and political force of Diego Rivera's revolutionary Mexican murals, in 1933 he petitioned President Franklin Roosevelt (a friend and former schoolmate) to inaugurate a federally sponsored program of mural painting. The resulting Public Works of Art Project was the first of a series of government-funded relief projects that fostered American Scene painting and supported many artists through the worst years of the crisis. ProvenanceThe artist and/or his dealer until 1969; Gift from the artist, or possible Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. purchase, to Chrysler Art Museum of Provincetown in 1969; Recorded as Gift of the Artist, George Biddle, to The Chrysler Museum, 1971. Exhibition History"George Biddle," one-man show, Rehn Galleries, New York, N.Y., November, 1932. College Art Association's International Exhibition, Rockefeller Center, New York, N.Y., February 1933. Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Annual Exhibition, 1933, no. 70. International Exhibition, Pittsburgh, Pa., October 1933. "Century of Progress Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, 1934," Art Institute of Chicago, Ill., June 1 - November 1, 1934. (The Century of Progress World's Fair was 1933, where Biddle exhibited Folly Beach Pavilion and installed in the Agriculture building the mural _Agriculture--Autumn Plowing_). "Behind the Seen: The Chrysler's Hidden Museum," Large Changing Gallery, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., October 21, 2005 - February 19, 2006. Published ReferencesEdward Alden Jewell, "Art in Review: George Biddle Gives a One-Man Mural Exhibition--'The Harvest' a Splendidly Organized Picture," _New York Times_ (November 18, 1932), 17. Elisabeth Luther Cary, "On 'Subject' Pictures: Canvases of This Type are Found Greatly Outnumbering the Others at Pittsburgh," _New York Times_ (October 29, 1933), X5. Martha N. Hagood and Jefferson C. Harrison, _American Art at the Chrysler Museum: Selected Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings_ (Norfolk, Va.: Chrysler Museum of Art, 2005), 180-181, no. 111. ISBN: 0-940744-71-6
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