Tahitian Journal

Tahitian Journal was first published in 1968. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

In 1920 the young American artist George Biddle, recently demobilized after serving in the front lines during World War I, sailed to the South Pacific to live on the island of Tahiti for two years. There he settled down in a native village a day's trip from Papeete. Much of the time he was alone - the nearest white man was a Corsican peasant married to a girl from Bora Bora. He learned the Tahitian dialect, made many friends in the village, and sailed with others to the distant atolls of the Dangerous Archipelago and Austral islands.

George Biddle's journal of his Tahitian experience presents a vivid personal narrative of life among a primitive people. It documents a significant period in his development as an artist and, in addition, provides valuable information about a native culture which is now almost completely vanished. The account offers interesting sidelights on a number of writers and artists, among them, James Norman Hall, Charles Nordhoff, Gaston La Chaise, Mary Cassatt, Eli Nadelman, William and Marguerite Zorach, and Arthur Carles.

The book is illustrated with reproductions of some of the artist's work and with photographs taken while he was in Tahiti.

In his introduction Mr. Biddle writes: "Almost fifty years have passed. The American friends whom I knew in Tahiti in 1920 are now dead. Many of my Tahitian friends must be dead, too. I have never tried to keep up with them. I have never wanted to go back. What could we now say to each other? And the memory of primitive people is shortlived. They are far happier than most of us, for they live only in the present."

George Biddle's art may be seen in many museums and other public places. He executed the murals for the Department of Justice building in Washington D.C., and the frescoes for the Supreme Court building in Mexico City and the National library in Rio de Janeiro. He has taught art from time to time at Columbia University, the Skowhegan School of Art, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, and the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of a number of books including An American Artist's Story, Indian Impressions, Green Island, Artist at War, Boardman Robinson, Adolphe Borie, and The Yes and No of Contemporary Art.