Skip to main contentBiographyKnown for capturing scenes of life on the rivers and in the towns of his home state of Missouri, George Caleb Bingham (1811–1879) created a romantic, humorous, and appealing vision of the West during a time when exploration and settlement of the region were increasing. A contemporary critic described his work as “truly American and decidedly original.” [1]
Although he is called “the Missouri artist,” Bingham was born in Virginia. At the age of seven, he moved with his family to Franklin, Missouri, where his father operated an inn and tavern. It was there that Bingham, while still a boy, met the artist Chester Harding, in Missouri to paint a portrait of Daniel Boone. Bingham spent some time serving as an assistant in Harding’s studio, an experience which left a deep impression. [2] His father’s death in 1823 changed the family’s fortunes. His mother moved to a farm near Arrow Rock, Missouri, where she operated a school and where Bingham likely gained his limited education. [3] At age sixteen, he was apprenticed to a cabinetmaker; he also tried his hand at sign painting. It is unclear what exactly prompted his first forays into portrait painting, but, by the early 1830s, he had an active patronage base of judges and doctors in the thriving towns along the Missouri River. His early portraits demonstrate an assured handling of the figure which sets Bingham apart from the self-taught folk artists of his day. He soon felt confident enough in his artistic abilities to add landscape to the subjects he could paint.
In 1838, Bingham traveled to Philadelphia and New York. At the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, he saw painting exhibitions, studied and drew, and purchased plaster casts to transport back to Missouri in order to improve his drafting abilities. [4] During his visit east, Bingham was exposed to genre art, or scenes of everyday life, perhaps in paintings by William Sidney Mount. The experience inspired him to capture life in Missouri as Mount had life on Long Island, New York. Bingham returned to Missouri in 1840 and began to paint genre scenes of his home state in earnest.
His first notable success came in 1845, with Fur Traders Descending the Missouri, in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The painting depicts two figures in a boat: a French trapper, likely down from Canada, and his son who float on a serene river under a luminous sky. The boy’s fringed pants and shiny black hair communicate his exotic parentage; indeed, Bingham originally titled the painting “French Trapper and his Half-Breed Son.” The chained bear cub works to exoticize the subject matter still further. Bingham sold the painting to the American Art-Union in New York, where it attracted the attention of eastern viewers with its intriguing depiction of the American frontier.
Bingham’s relationship with the American Art-Union blossomed. Between 1845 and 1852, twenty of his paintings were distributed in the Art-Union lottery, and The Jolly Flat Boat Men, Manoogian Collection, was engraved for distribution in 1847. When the organization disbanded in 1852, Bingham had trouble finding skillful engravers and reliable distribution networks for his paintings. [5]
Fur Traders Descending the Missouri and The Jolly Flat Boat Men represent one of the themes important to Bingham’s work: the life of the river men, whose nomadic existences and carefree pastimes struck contemporary viewers as both appealing and exotic. Bingham’s second major theme, the political process as it played out in small towns in the West, found equally appreciative audiences. In a series of paintings that included Canvassing for a Vote, 1851–1852, Stump Speaking, 1853–1854, and The Verdict of the People, 1853–1854, Bingham captured the humorous vignettes that accompanied the democratic process.
It was an arena he knew well, as an active member of the Missouri Whig party. Given the distasteful results of Bingham’s first political campaign in 1846, in which he won a seat in the Missouri State Legislature only to have the seat stripped by the Democratic-controlled body, it is perhaps surprising that Bingham returned to politics at all, either in life or in art. He said of his experiences at the time, “As soon as I get through with this affair, and its consequences, I intend to strip off my clothes and bury them, scour my body all over with sand and water, put on a clean suit, and keep out of politics forever.” [6] Nevertheless, he served in public office four times: as a member of the Missouri legislature in 1848, as state treasurer in the 1860s, as president of the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners in 1874, and as adjutant general of Missouri in 1875. [7] And, when he was not involved personally with politics, he mined the subject for some of his most arresting and amusing canvases.
Always ambitious, Bingham traveled periodically in an effort to improve his art and expand his patronage—to Washington, D.C., to seek commissions from the Whig-controlled government in the 1840s, to Philadelphia and Paris to engage competent engravers for the distribution of his paintings, and to Düsseldorf for study between 1856 and 1858. He always returned to Missouri and to his family; he was married three times and fathered several children.
Bingham spent his later years painting portraits and attempting to market prints after his paintings. In addition to his political appointments, he served as an art instructor at the University of Missouri at Columbia, an institution founded by his friend and benefactor James Rollins. Despite his stated belief that art should express “the grand and beautiful in nature,” Bingham is best known for his lively, amusing, and wry depictions of rural and small-town life in antebellum America. [8]
Notes:
[1] New York Express, in Jefferson City Metropolitan, August 17, 1847, quoted in Barbara Novak, American Painting of the Nineteenth Century, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper and Row, 1979), 153.
[2] Leah Lipton, “George Caleb Bingham in the Studio of Chester Harding, Franklin, Mo., 1820,” The American Art Journal16 (1984), 90–91.
[3] John F. McDermott, George Caleb Bingham: River Portraitist (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1959), 15.
[4] Nancy Rash, The Painting and Politics of George Caleb Bingham (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991), 12.
[5] Michael E. Shapiro, et al., George Caleb Bingham (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1990), 31.
[6] Shapiro, Bingham, 44.
[7] Bingham, quoted in Barbara S. Groseclose, “Painting, Politics, and George Caleb Bingham,” The American Art Journal10 (1978), 5.
[8] Bingham quoted in Shapiro, Bingham, 48.
George Caleb Bingham
1811 - 1879
Although he is called “the Missouri artist,” Bingham was born in Virginia. At the age of seven, he moved with his family to Franklin, Missouri, where his father operated an inn and tavern. It was there that Bingham, while still a boy, met the artist Chester Harding, in Missouri to paint a portrait of Daniel Boone. Bingham spent some time serving as an assistant in Harding’s studio, an experience which left a deep impression. [2] His father’s death in 1823 changed the family’s fortunes. His mother moved to a farm near Arrow Rock, Missouri, where she operated a school and where Bingham likely gained his limited education. [3] At age sixteen, he was apprenticed to a cabinetmaker; he also tried his hand at sign painting. It is unclear what exactly prompted his first forays into portrait painting, but, by the early 1830s, he had an active patronage base of judges and doctors in the thriving towns along the Missouri River. His early portraits demonstrate an assured handling of the figure which sets Bingham apart from the self-taught folk artists of his day. He soon felt confident enough in his artistic abilities to add landscape to the subjects he could paint.
In 1838, Bingham traveled to Philadelphia and New York. At the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, he saw painting exhibitions, studied and drew, and purchased plaster casts to transport back to Missouri in order to improve his drafting abilities. [4] During his visit east, Bingham was exposed to genre art, or scenes of everyday life, perhaps in paintings by William Sidney Mount. The experience inspired him to capture life in Missouri as Mount had life on Long Island, New York. Bingham returned to Missouri in 1840 and began to paint genre scenes of his home state in earnest.
His first notable success came in 1845, with Fur Traders Descending the Missouri, in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The painting depicts two figures in a boat: a French trapper, likely down from Canada, and his son who float on a serene river under a luminous sky. The boy’s fringed pants and shiny black hair communicate his exotic parentage; indeed, Bingham originally titled the painting “French Trapper and his Half-Breed Son.” The chained bear cub works to exoticize the subject matter still further. Bingham sold the painting to the American Art-Union in New York, where it attracted the attention of eastern viewers with its intriguing depiction of the American frontier.
Bingham’s relationship with the American Art-Union blossomed. Between 1845 and 1852, twenty of his paintings were distributed in the Art-Union lottery, and The Jolly Flat Boat Men, Manoogian Collection, was engraved for distribution in 1847. When the organization disbanded in 1852, Bingham had trouble finding skillful engravers and reliable distribution networks for his paintings. [5]
Fur Traders Descending the Missouri and The Jolly Flat Boat Men represent one of the themes important to Bingham’s work: the life of the river men, whose nomadic existences and carefree pastimes struck contemporary viewers as both appealing and exotic. Bingham’s second major theme, the political process as it played out in small towns in the West, found equally appreciative audiences. In a series of paintings that included Canvassing for a Vote, 1851–1852, Stump Speaking, 1853–1854, and The Verdict of the People, 1853–1854, Bingham captured the humorous vignettes that accompanied the democratic process.
It was an arena he knew well, as an active member of the Missouri Whig party. Given the distasteful results of Bingham’s first political campaign in 1846, in which he won a seat in the Missouri State Legislature only to have the seat stripped by the Democratic-controlled body, it is perhaps surprising that Bingham returned to politics at all, either in life or in art. He said of his experiences at the time, “As soon as I get through with this affair, and its consequences, I intend to strip off my clothes and bury them, scour my body all over with sand and water, put on a clean suit, and keep out of politics forever.” [6] Nevertheless, he served in public office four times: as a member of the Missouri legislature in 1848, as state treasurer in the 1860s, as president of the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners in 1874, and as adjutant general of Missouri in 1875. [7] And, when he was not involved personally with politics, he mined the subject for some of his most arresting and amusing canvases.
Always ambitious, Bingham traveled periodically in an effort to improve his art and expand his patronage—to Washington, D.C., to seek commissions from the Whig-controlled government in the 1840s, to Philadelphia and Paris to engage competent engravers for the distribution of his paintings, and to Düsseldorf for study between 1856 and 1858. He always returned to Missouri and to his family; he was married three times and fathered several children.
Bingham spent his later years painting portraits and attempting to market prints after his paintings. In addition to his political appointments, he served as an art instructor at the University of Missouri at Columbia, an institution founded by his friend and benefactor James Rollins. Despite his stated belief that art should express “the grand and beautiful in nature,” Bingham is best known for his lively, amusing, and wry depictions of rural and small-town life in antebellum America. [8]
Notes:
[1] New York Express, in Jefferson City Metropolitan, August 17, 1847, quoted in Barbara Novak, American Painting of the Nineteenth Century, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper and Row, 1979), 153.
[2] Leah Lipton, “George Caleb Bingham in the Studio of Chester Harding, Franklin, Mo., 1820,” The American Art Journal16 (1984), 90–91.
[3] John F. McDermott, George Caleb Bingham: River Portraitist (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1959), 15.
[4] Nancy Rash, The Painting and Politics of George Caleb Bingham (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991), 12.
[5] Michael E. Shapiro, et al., George Caleb Bingham (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1990), 31.
[6] Shapiro, Bingham, 44.
[7] Bingham, quoted in Barbara S. Groseclose, “Painting, Politics, and George Caleb Bingham,” The American Art Journal10 (1978), 5.
[8] Bingham quoted in Shapiro, Bingham, 48.
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