Autumn in Tortilla Flat

From Mattatuck Museum

George Biddle (created by)
Mattatuck Historical Soc (owned by)

1940 (Date manufactured/created)

Oil

canvas, painting

Genre scene of a woman doing laundry in a bleak landscape. It is possible that the idea for this painting was developed during one of Biddle's many trips to Mexico. The title also suggests a connection to John Steinbeck's novel "Tortilla Flat" which was first published in 1935. A similar painting by Biddle, titled "Winter in Tortilla Flat", 1941, at the Whitney Museum, suggests Biddle may have done a series of paintings based on Steinbeck's powerful story of economic and social distress in America. In the lower left corner a woman does laundry with a washboard on the banks of a stream. A chicken pecks at the grass in the lower right corner. A chain-link fence encloses the yard around a shanty and outhouse. Three leafless trees on the far side of the yard looking out towards a barren hillside. Laundry dries on a line in the lower yard under a bleak sky with black clouds and traces of pink. Signed and dated lower left. Biddle was born in Croton-on-Hudson in 1885 and died in Philadelphia in 1973. He was a painter, printmaker, muralist, and writer. Most of his artwork was created between 1914 and 1964. He was trained academically and them was challenged by modernist art. Throughout his career he consciously attempted to establish his own artistic identity.

Gift of Mildred Thaler Cohen, 1999. Seymour R. Thaler and Mildred Thaler Cohen Collection

Accession/ID Number 99.25.2