AN AMERICAN ARTIST'S STORY

George Biddle has an artist's eye and memory for the things he has experienced; a writer's ear for the things he has heard; a dramatist's sense of values -- and he uses them all to full advantage in this absorbing autobiography. With Thomas Benton's An Artist in America, one feels that here are two as brilliant pieces of autobiography as one is likely to find -- both written by men who have made art a life passion. Biddle's was a more rounded life, though he successfully repudiates many of the things he experienced, -- particularly his schooling at Groton and Harvard. Wasted years, he terms them. His was a background rooted in American traditions of snobbery, but it seems to have influenced him little. The boyhood memories are entertaining and unusual -- and he reveals much in the flashbacks to family experiences and contacts. The last third of the book is more -- and less -- than autobiographical, and might well serve as a creed of modern American art. All in all the book is revealing and exceptionally good reading.