George Bingham

George Caleb Bingham (1811-1879) was first apprenticed to a cabinetmaker, where he was led to sign-painting. He travelled the Missouri river, painting portraits, before studying art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and moving to Washington in the hope of working full-time as an artist. By 1840 he was back in Missouri, where he began the large series of genre studies of river life for which he is best known.