Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Stories Behind George Caleb Bingham Portraits”
Recto – George Caleb Bingham Shubael Allen (1793- 1841) was New York native and a civil engineer. Before moving to Missouri by 1818, he helped build bridges in Pennsylvania and Kentucky. In 1822, in Boonville, Missouri, he married Dinah Ayers Trigg. They moved to Missouri’s western frontier where for several years they shared a dog trot cabin with Dinah’s sister …
Recto and Verso The stories behind 19th century American portraits on this blog have so far spoken to the lives of people on the front of the canvas. The front of an artwork is referred to formally as “recto.” Verso” is the term for the back. The back of a painting is literally a support system. Beginning with this blog, …
Discovering History through Art Historians usually add a painting as an illustration. Fine Art Investigations uses portraits as an entry point to history. An example is the stories behind the recently re-discovered portraits of the Dunnicas. The first part of their biography briefly described American expansion in the west after the War of 1812. Back when the Western frontier was central Missouri and …
Recto – George Caleb Bingham Mary Elizabeth Hickman was born in Franklin, Missouri, on October 10, 1820, the middle child of the three children of James E. Hickman and Sophia Woodson Hickman. The Bingham family arrived in Franklin from Virginia shortly before her birth. James Hickman and George Caleb Bingham’s father, Henry Vest Bingham, invested in some of the same …
Recto – George Caleb Bingham Early Years William Franklin Dunnica was a 30-year-old merchant in Glasgow, Chariton County, Missouri, in 1837 when George Caleb Bingham painted the recently re-discovered portraits of him and of his 17-year-old wife, Martha Jane Shackelford. A year later, the Missouri militia called Dunnica and other men from Chariton County to neighboring Carroll County where long-term …
Times and attitudes changed, and people like John King Stark, husband of George Caleb Bingham’s Vestine Porter, became dentists. Vestine Porter Vestine Porter was 15 years old when Bingham painted her portrait. It was near the time of her marriage on December 11, 1850, to Dr. John King Stark, 22. Vestine’s father was a landowner in Independence, Missouri, and the state’s first railroad president.((The …
