Mississippi Fisherman

A man sits quietly fishing in a secluded riverside spot, his loose-fitting shirt, boots and hat marking him as a working hand in the river economy of the American mid-century. George Caleb Bingham, raised in Missouri, built his reputation on genre paintings of the working-class boatmen who moved commercial goods along the Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio rivers, and this canvas condenses that world into an image of stillness and patience. His scenes reinforced the ties between west and east, north and south in a disquieted nation; Bingham was himself a politician and officeholder in Missouri and, in the 1850s, a staunch advocate for the preservation of the Union who spoke out against slavery. The canvas descended in the family of the artist’s second wife before entering the collection of Marshall Field V, who gave it to the Art Institute of Chicago in 2021. The painting is held in the Art Institute of Chicago.