Bingham, George Caleb

George Caleb Bingham (March 20, 1811 – July 7, 1879) is recognized as one of the most important American artists of the 19th century. Known in his lifetime as “the Missouri artist,” he is distinguished among the first generation of painters of the early American West for classic narrative scenes drawn from his observation and experience. [1] His most famous paintings chronicle America’s westward expansion and depict life along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Rendered in the style of “genre painting,” Bingham’s works capture the unique aspects of the American frontier with themes of community engagement, leisure, and river life before the steamboat era. His Fur Traders Descending the Missouri (1845, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) is a renowned example of Bingham’s genre paintings, containing a colorful cast of characters and scenes imbued with layers of symbolism and socio-political commentary. Today, Bingham’s paintings portraying fur trappers, riverboat men, fishermen, politicians and frontier settlers are considered national treasures and can be viewed as vivid historical records of the politics, commerce and social relations of everyday life of the American frontier...