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George Caleb Bingham
George Caleb Bingham(March 20, 1811 - July 7, 1879) was an
American realist artist, whose work depicts American life in the
frontier lands along the Missouri River. Left to languish in
obscurity, George's work was rediscovered in the 1930s and he is
now widely considered one of the greatest American painters of the
1800s.
Born in Augusta County, Virginia, George was the second of seven
children born to Henry Vest Bingham and Mary Amend. Upon their
marriage, Matthias Amend, Mary's father, gave ownership to the
family mill, 1,180 acres of land and several slaves to Henry with
the agreement that Matthias could live with the family the rest of
his life. Henry offered the land and mill as surety for a friend's
debt and, when the friend died in 1818, all was lost. George's
family soon moved to Franklin, Missouri,where the land was said to
be bountiful, fertile and cheap.
George was a self-taught artist. His sole childhood exposure to the
field was as a nine-year-old boy, when famed American portraitist
Chester Harding visited Franklin looking for business, having
recently sketched Daniel Boone in Warren County, Missouri. George
assisted Harding during his brief stay, an experience that left a
powerful impression.
In 1823, George's father, now judge of Howard County Court, died of
malaria on December 26 at the age of thirty-eight. To keep the
family going, Mary Bingham opened a school for girls and George,
now twelve, worked as school janitor to help keep the family
afloat. At age sixteen, George apprenticed with cabinet maker Jesse
Green. After Green moved, he apprenticed with another cabinet
maker, Justinian Williams. Both tradesmen were Methodist ministers
and, while under their tutelage, George studied religious texts,
preached at camp meetings and thought about becoming a minister
himself. George also considered becoming a lawyer.
However, by age nineteen, George was painting portraits for $20.00
a piece, often completing the works in a single day. He drummed up
work in both Franklin and Arrow Rock and, while his painting
abilities were still developing, succeeded in impressing his
patrons with his strong draftsmanship and ability to capture the
likeness of his subject. Soon George attempted to travel to St.
Louis to ply his trade but contracted measles, which left him weak
and permanently bald.
In 1836, George married Sarah Elizabeth Hutchison, who bore him
three children over the subsequent twelve years before dying at the
age of twenty-nine. George married twice more, first to Eliza
Thomas, who died in a mental institution in 1876, and then to
Martha Lykins, who lived until 1890. George's mother, Mary, died in
1851.
By 1838, George was already beginning to make a name for himself as
a portrait artist in St. Louis, his studio visited by several
prominent local citizens and statesmen, including the lawyer James
S. Rollins who was to become a life-long friend. To further his
education, George spent three months in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
before continuing on to New York to visit the National Academy of
Design exhibition.
George was elected to the Missouri General Assembly in 1848.
From 1856 to 1859, Bingham studied art with the members of the
Düsseldorf School in Düsseldorf, Germany. Critics claim that this
caused him to abandon the rustic American style in his art. Upon
his return, he began painting less, turning to politics in the
post-Civil War years and serving as state treasurer and adjutant
general. He was also president of the Board of Police Commissioners
for Kansas City, Missouri in 1874, appointing the first chief of
police there. Toward the end of his life he was a professor of art
at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
In 1998, the United States Postal Service issued a set of 20
commemorative stamps entitled "
Four
Centuries of American Art", one of which featured George Caleb
Bingham's "Boatmen on the Missouri"
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