Birthday Today - George Caleb Bingham

The Regular Son might like this... the most famous work by one of America's greatest painters of the 19th Century, George Caleb Bingham, Fur Traders Descending the Missouri:

Bingham was born in 1811.   During his life he made his living as a portrait painter, but interestingly he also was a member of Missouri's General Assembly and, later, President of the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners.   Interesting... nowadays I suspect most "artists," like most "poets," end up in academia in one form or another, and certainly not as much "of the world" as Bingham apparently was.