Every film begins with its creator asking a question:
“Why do this project?”
You had better answer that for yourself, because eventually it’s a question you must answer for everybody else, including investors, partners and the people you want to see the film. So, why are we doing our documentary, The American Artist: The Life and Times of George Caleb Bingham?
Because...
...his work, many of them unsigned portraits and landscapes, hang in museums around the world.
...though his life was filled with great personal suffering and loss, his vision for the America as depicted in his paintings was idyllic and serene
...he grew up along the Missouri River when the state was still a frontier and America was still forming.
...he was a self-taught artist and ambitious entrepreneur who use his earnings and contacts as a painter of portraits to launch a prolific political and art career. He built a life amidst death, suffering the loss of his father, his grandfather, his brother, two wives and two children.
...he became friends with many of the influential heads he painted and soon found himself catapulted into the political arena.
...he clung to his ideal of a unified nation even as war ripped his beloved nation and home state in two.
...he joined the Union ranks during the Civil War and even served as Missouri’s Treasurer.
...he lived out his remaining years as a simple, elderly professor of art, shunned for his controversial paintings and politics and little thought of as an artist outside of the borders of his state.
...as we entered the 20th century, The Missouri Painter’s great works were rediscovered and deemed a national treasure.
...he lived during the Westward Expansion, two Industrial Revolutions, the Civil War and the Restoration that followed.
...through it all Bingham was always more than an observer he was an ambitious, active participant.
BONUS: TEASER TRAILER
In short, we’re making this documentary because Bingham built a remarkable life and his paintings are lasting visual documents of our country’s great frontier. The next question you have to answer about a film: “Why should anyone watch it?” In film, the answer to that question takes the form of a teaser. So we invite you to check out the trailer for The American Artist: The Life and Times of George Caleb Bingham:
To find out more about the documentary and be notified when it premiers in 2016, please join our mail list by clicking here.