George Caleb Bingham (1811 - 1879). George Caleb Bingham was an American artist, soldier and politician known in his lifetime as the Missouri Artist. Initially a Whig, he was elected as a delegate to the Missouri legislature before the American Civil War where he fought the extension of slavery westward. During that war, although born in Virginia, Bingham was dedicated to the Union cause and became captain of a volunteer company which helped keep the state from joining the Confederacy, and then served four years as Missouri's Treasurer. During his final years, Bingham held several offices in Kansas City, while also serving as Missouri's Adjutant General. His paintings of American frontier life along the Missouri River exemplify the Luminist style. Born on a farm in Augusta County, Virginia, George Caleb Bingham was the second of seven children that Mary Amend bore with her husband Henry Vest Bingham. Upon their marriage, Mary's father Matthias Amend gave the Binghams ownership of the family mill, 1,180 acres land, and several slaves with the agreement that Matthias could live with the family for the rest of his life. Henry Bingham offered the land and mill as surety for a friend's debt and, when the friend died in 1818, all was lost. In 1819, the Bingham family moved to Franklin, Howard County, Missouri on the Missouri River near the state's center as well as the eastern terminus of the Santa Fe Trail, where the land was said to be bountiful, fertile and cheap. George Bingham was initially educated by his mother, and self-taught as an artist. His sole childhood exposure to a working artist was as a nine-year-old boy, when famed American portraitist Chester Harding visited Franklin looking for business, having recently sketched Daniel Boone in Warren County, Missouri. George assisted Harding during his brief stay, an experience that left a powerful impression. On December 23, 1823, Bingham's father Henry, who had initially opened a tavern in Franklin and in 1821 become the judge of the Howard County Court, died of malaria at the age of thirty-eight. To keep the family going since her husband's investment in a tobacco venture had failed, debts forced the sale of the home in Franklin, and the young sons barely kept their small farm in nearly Saline County afloat, in part with the help of their father's brother John, who had moved to the area and donated half the land which became Arrow Rock. Mary Bingham opened a school for girls on the farmstead. George, then twelve, worked as the school janitor, and later received some art tutoring when the school hired Mattie Wood as an art teacher. At age sixteen, the young Bingham was apprenticed to cabinet maker Jesse Green in nearby Boonville in Cooper County. After Green moved away, Bingham apprenticed with another cabinet maker, Justinian Williams. Both tradesmen were Methodist ministers. While under their tutelage, Bingham studied religious texts, preached at camp meetings and thought about becoming a minister in his Baptist Church. He also considered becoming a lawyer. His elder brother Matthias Bingham would travel to Texas to fight for its independence in 1836, and remain in Mexico until his death in 1861, becoming a large landowner in the process but never marrying.By age nineteen, Bingham was painting portraits for $20.00 apiece, often completing the works in a single day. He drummed up work in Howard and Saline counties and nearby areas. Though his painting abilities were still developing, he impressed his patrons by strong draftsmanship as well as his native ability to capture his subject's likeness, and he was able to support himself by this work by 1833. Soon Bingham was ready to travel to St. Louis to ply his trade, but contracted measles. The illness left him weak and permanently bald. By 1838, Bingham had established a studio in St. Louis, the state's major city, and was beginning to make a name as a portrait artist. Several prominent local citizens visited his studio for portraits, including the lawyer James S. Rollins of Columbia, Missouri, who became a lifelong friend as well as a powerful politician in the state. While Bingham frequently worked in St. Louis, he kept his principal residence in Arrow Rock for years. Bingham then decided to try formal education in the east, and moved with his young wife to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he spent three years studying art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, including a trip to New York City to visit the National Academy of Design exhibition. Bingham then spent nearly five years in Washington, D.C., where he painted portraits of various politicians, including former president John Quincy Adams, who had become a member of Congress and famous abolitionist.