George Caleb Bingham

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Self-portrait, 1835

George Caleb Bingham (born March 20, 1811 in Augusta County , Virginia , † July 7, 1879 in Kansas City , Missouri ) was a painter of the Düsseldorf School of Painting and American Realism and a politician in Missouri.

Life

For Traders Descending the Missouri, ca.1845

Bingham was the son of the farmer Henry Vest and his wife Mary Bingham, nee Amend. In 1819 the family moved with the eight-year-old son to Franklin , Missouri, where he grew up. In 1827 he began training as a cabinet maker in Boonville , while he was already painting on the side. From 1833 he moved as a portrait painter along the Missouri River , in 1835 he painted his earliest self-portrait. In 1838 he began studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia and in 1840 he had his first exhibition at the National Academy of Design in New York .

Bingham painted portraits of American politicians in Washington until 1843 , and from 1845 he created his famous pictures of river scenes in which he depicted the life of the people along the Missouri. These pictures became well known primarily through engravings by the American Art Union . In the 1850s he also painted several genre pictures with political content.

Bingham was politically active in Missouri as early as 1840. In 1848 he became a member of the State House of Representatives . After 1850 he made regular trips to New York, Philadelphia and Washington DC. From 1856 to 1859 he stayed in Düsseldorf to study . In 1862 he was then Treasury Secretary ( State Treasurer ) of Missouri and Adjutant general . In 1877 he got a chair at the Missouri School of Art in Columbia , then went to Boonville and finally to Kansas City, where he died of cholera in 1879 .

literature

Daniel Boone Escorting Settlers Through the Cumberland Gap, 1851/52
  • Thomas W. Gaethgens: Pictures from the New World. American Painting of the 18th and 19th Centuries, Prestel-Verlag, 1988, page 307. ISBN 3-7913-0879-3 .
  • Robert L. Gale: Bingham, George Caleb. American Council of Learned Societies, Oxford University Press, 2000 ( online ).
  • Elizabeth Johns: Bingham, George Caleb. Oxford University Press.

Web links

Commons : George Caleb Bingham  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files
personal data
SURNAME Bingham, George Caleb
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American realism painter and politician
DATE OF BIRTH March 20, 1811
PLACE OF BIRTH Augusta County , Virginia
DATE OF DEATH July 7, 1879
Place of death Kansas City , Missouri