Navigating the West: George Caleb Bingham and the River

An oil painting of a group of White men lounging on a flat boat as two play music and one man dances in the center.
October 2, 2014–January 18, 2015
Second floor

Navigating the West, a dynamic exhibition featuring 16 iconic river paintings and 50 drawings, reveals for the first time how George Caleb Bingham (1811–1879) created his art and artistic persona at a time when American painting, like the country, was dramatically shifting. Then and now our nation’s waterways—how they are used, controlled, and the lives of the people closest to them—remain a current and important issue.

After premiering at the Carter, the exhibition traveled to the Saint Louis Art Museum, on view from February 22–May 17, 2015. It closed in New York at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from June 15–September 20, 2015.

Installation Photos

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This exhibition has been organized by the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, and the Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis, Missouri. It is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities and in part by generous grants from the Henry Luce Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. The Fort Worth presentation is supported by the Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Foundation for the Arts and the Crystelle Waggoner Charitable Trust, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee. The media sponsor is WFAA.