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Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (search for "bingham")

Butler

Bingham's father lost a successful business in Virginia after he endorsed a friend's promissory note. They moved to Missouri and were regaining their prosperity when the father died. (George was 12.) George and his brothers then had to assume the responsibility for supporting the family.

Whenever he could, George would sneak away to Arrow Rock, a bluff overlooking the Missouri River. From there he would watch the fur trappers and river people. When he returned home he was greeted by scolding for playing instead of working.

He was apprenticed to a cabinetmaker (at age 16) and eventually became a sign painter. When he was 22 (1823) he started traveling up and down the rivers as an itinerant portrait painter. He studied briefly in Philadelphia and New York (1838).

Bingham was involved in politics (elected to Missouri legislature in 1846) and tried to combine his two interests by moving to Washington, D.C. This was a failure. (The only famous sitter who could be lured into the studio was John Q. Adams, and he was so dissatisfied with the result that he refused the painting.) He returned to Missouri in 1844 to help with the campaign, but his candidate (Clay) was defeated. He remembered that the only paintings (of his) which had been accepted in the East were those of Western life. He displayed works with the American Art-Union.

The scenes which made him famous were of river people with two things missing: scolding women and work. He was also noted for political paintings. (While treasurer of Missouri during the Civil War he warned a Union General to not carry out plans to create a buffer zone with Kansas by laying waste several Missouri counties. The general proceeded and Bingham made him infamous with Order No. 11.)

Bingham's compositions were very complex, and he would sometimes use the same head on a number of bodies in the same picture.

His greatest recognition was between 1845 and 1855. ("I am getting quite conceited, whispering to myself...that I am the greatest among the disciples of the brush my country has ever produced." - 1853) His canvases were sold before the paint was dry. Later he studied in Dusseldorf.

His style changed and his popularity disappeared.