| Description |
This project examines George Caleb Bingham's Portrait of Mrs. James Thomas Birch of 1877, part of small collection of portraits that Bingham painted of members of the Nelson and Birch families of Boonville, Missouri. The American Realist painter's devotion to political issues associated with frontier living, particularly those in Missouri, informed much of his subject matter at the height of his artistic career. While much attention and scholarly research has been dedicated to the impact of Bingham's political ideologies on his genre paintings, little has been said on how such beliefs shaped his portraiture. Through a close examination of Bingham's Portrait of Mrs. James Thomas Birch, this paper reveals how Bingham crafted an identity for his sitter that was profoundly influenced by his political beliefs, creating an image centered around domestic harmony and the potential of the Missourian frontier to the United States of America in the late nineteenth century. |
