Painter, born in Augusta Co, Virginia, USA. His family moved to Missouri (1819), and he began painting scenes from his surrounding frontier life, such as The Fur Traders Descending the Missouri (1845) and The Trappers Return (1851). He was often involved in politics, and his painting, The County Election (18512) is one of many works reflecting this interest. After studying at Düsseldorf (18569), he became an art professor at the University of Missouri (1877) but from then on the quality of his work declined.
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. 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. 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. 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. Soon George attemptted 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 portait artist in St. Louis, his studio visited by several prominent local citizens and statesmen, including the lawyer James S. 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.
Fur Traders Descending the Missouri
This is one of Bingham's most famous paintings and now resides in the permanent collection of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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