George Biddle, Nude Bathing

Biddle’s prints of the mid-1910s suggest that he studied the work of French and American Impressionists. He revered Mary Cassatt as one of the greatest artists of modern times. When he met her in Paris in 1912, the two became close friends. Cassatt took Biddle under her wing, introducing him to important gallerists and artists, including Claude Monet. She also became an important mentor. Biddle would bicycle over to her chateau for lunch when he was living and making art in Giverny, then famously the home of Monet, and where Frederick Frieseke, an American Impressionist, had established an expatriate art colony. Nude Bathing suggests that Biddle was looking at the famous bathers of Degas.