George Caleb Bingham Biography | Oil Painting Reproductions

George Caleb Bingham was a self-trained artist. His sole adolescence introduction to the field was as a nine-year-old kid when renowned American portraitist Chester Harding visited searching for new business in his town. George Caleb Bingham helped Harding during his brief stay, an experience that left a powerful impression on the young boy.

By age nineteen, George Caleb Bingham was painting pictures for $20.00 each, frequently finishing the works in a solitary day. While his artistic capacities were still developing, he succeeded in impressing his patrons with his solid draftsmanship and capacity to catch the similarity of his subject. By 1838, George Caleb Bingham was at that point starting to make a name as a portrait artist in St. Louis, the major city of the territory, his studio was visited by several prominent local citizens and statesmen.

After moving his family to St. Louis permanently, Bingham was chosen to the Missouri House of Representatives in 1848, one of only a handful of artists to ever serve in political office in the USA. His enthusiasm for governmental issues was reflected in his artworks of the distinctive political life on the frontier.

Painting the Bargemen on the Mississippi.

Parallel to landscape painting at this time, genre painting likewise was created around the mid-nineteenth century. The main example of this style of painting was George Caleb Bingham, who committed himself to portray the men who cruised the barges on the Mississippi and Missouri waterways, similar to characters that show up in Mark Twain's renowned stories.

In 1856 Bingham moved to Europe with his second spouse Eliza and youngest daughter. To start with, they remained in Paris for a while, where Bingham satisfied a long yearning to study the Old Masters at the Louvre Museum. Then they went to Düsseldorf, Germany, where they lived until 1859, participating in the Düsseldorf school of painting. Bingham lived and worked among the American and German artists of the art settlement, among whom was the German-American Emanuel Leutze, the most prominent historical painter of the United States at the time.

Upon his arrival back to America, Bingham started painting more portraits, which had dependably been his "bread and butter" work. Amid the American Civil War, Bingham supported the Union and was named State Treasurer of Missouri. He continued to stay involved in politics in the post-Civil War years through political arrangements. In 1874, he was named the first police chief there. In 1875, the governor appointed George Caleb Bingham as Adjutant-General of Missouri, and from there on he was frequently referred to as General Bingham.

Art Movement History: Luminism.
Artists Influencing George Bingham: Chester Harding.
He Traveled To France, Germany.
Artist's Biography compiled by Albert L. Mansour at The World's Artist, with text adapted from Wikipedia.