New in the Galleries: Gallery of European and American Art

Portrait of Thomas Withers Nelson
George Caleb Bingham

Bingham is Missouri’s most famous nineteenth-century painter. Born in Virginia, he moved to Franklin, Missouri in 1819. He began his career as a self-taught portrait painter in 1833 and became successful enough to open a studio in St. Louis in 1835. Interested in refining his craft, Bingham also studied art in Philadelphia and traveled to New York in 1838. Bingham lived in Columbia at various times during his life and was appointed the first Professor of Art at the University of Missouri in 1877.

For this portrait, Bingham portrayed his close friend and patron, Thomas Withers Nelson. In 1837 Nelson married Mary Gay Wyan, daughter of the wealthy Boonville merchant Jacob Wyan, with whom Nelson became a partner in business. Historians believe that Bingham began this portrait when he was in Boonville for a convention of the Missouri Whig party in 1844.

Dressed in the finest clothes of the period, the portrait reflects Nelson’s great financial success. Although Bingham painted Nelson with his characteristic vibrant treatment of skin tones, he did not idealize him. The lines and creases of Nelson’s face underscore his age and stature. While outwardly celebrating Nelson’s affluence, the painting contains a darker meaning as well. The brooch applied to the folds of his shirt is a piece of mourning jewelry, as the large piece of jet at the center of the pin indicates. While outwardly the image of a wealthy businessman, the portrait also warns the viewer about the transience of human life and earthly achievements.