The Journal
The Bingham Project: The
Missing Portraits of George Caleb Bingham The Autumn 2001 JOURNAL of the Jackson County Historical
Society presents The Bingham Project:
The Missing Portraits of George Caleb Bingham by Patsy Moss. The article highlights a project that
Moss is undertaking and is inviting input from interested individuals and
organizations. George Caleb Bingham is Jackson County’s first premiere
artist. Bingham lived and had a
studio at what is today the Bingham-Waggoner Estate in Independence. There he painted his famed “Order
Number 11” in response to General Ewing’s brutal enforcement of martial law
during the War Between the States. Moss’ intention is to begin constructing a
history of our region as seen through sketches of the subjects in Bingham’s
portraits.
Bingham’s “Martial Law,”
or “Order No. 11.” The first
copy painted between 1865 and 1868 was on canvas, and was appraised in
the artist’s estate in 1879 at $250; a second copy painted on a linen
tablecloth is located today at the State Historical Society of Missouri
in Columbia. If you know the whereabouts of a Bingham painting,
contact Patsy Moss who heads up the Bingham Project. Out of nearly 350 known paintings, more than 100 were of
people who helped to settle and improve Kansas City. Today, Moss has been able to discover
the location of only 33 of those portraits. She is working to find the missing portraits, determine if
any need restoring, work to reproduce them, and produce an updated catalog of
Bingham’s works. Maybe after
looking at this feature article—complete with a listing of the currently
“missing” portraits—you may be able to assist her in furthering The Bingham
Project. Patsy Moss, a native of the
Kansas City region, is a freelance historical writer. She is the author of “Prelude to the
Shawnee Methodist Mission: Family Connections of Sarah Johnson with the
Shawnee Prophet,” (Kawsmouth: A Journal
of Regional History, Vol. 2, No. 1, Autumn 1999), and “The Portraits of
George Caleb Bingham Reveal a Different History of Greater Kansas City,” (Kawsmouth: A Journal of Regional History,
Special Issue: History of the Arts in Kansas City, Vol. 3, No. 1,
Winter–Spring 2001). Here are some World Wide Web links that help to
complement what Moss has offered in the print version of the JOURNAL. To
order this JOURNAL edition, subscribe or join JCHS click here. Biography
of George Caleb Bingham A Catalog
Raisonne
George
Caleb Bingham on the Internet The
Grave of George Caleb Bingham Images and Biography www.artchive.com/artchive/B/bingham.html www.kargesfineart.com/links2/George-Caleb-Bingham.htm Order Number
11 and the Famous Painting Order
Number 11 at the 1859 Jail Museum in Independence Painting
and Politics of Bingham |
