Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “James Sidney Rollins”
On this day in 1873, George Caleb Bingham in Kansas City, Missouri, wrote to James S. Rollins in Columbia, Missouri, “I will call by as I go east, and assist in the proper framing of your portrait. It will be well to put on a new strong stretching frame, with another good thick canvas behind it to give that on which the …
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, …
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 …
James Sidney Rollins was George Caleb Bingham‘s “warmest personal friend.” This re-discovered Bingham portrait descended in the Rollins family to a great-granddaughter who had always been told it was the work of an unknown artist. She wanted the people of Missouri to have it. When the painting arrived in the Midwest, I immediately recognized the artist as George Caleb Bingham. Other experts and …
