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Record: Portrait of Fanny Smith Crenshaw 

                  
Portrait of Fanny Smith Crenshaw by George Caleb Bingham

Copyright 2005-06-08, George Caleb Bingham Catalogue Raisonne Supplement
Fred R. Kline, M.A., Editor & Director, Independent Art Historian
Kline Art Research Associates
7 Avenida Vista Grande, Suite B-7 , Santa Fe, NM 87508


frk@georgecalebbingham.org   505-9881103
          

Artist:
   GEORGE CALEB BINGHAM, American, 1811-1879 
   
Title:
   PORTRAIT OF FANNY SMITH CRENSHAW
 

Born May 28, 1841Nashville, TN; died Jan. 27, 1919 Oakdale, LA (buried Springfield, MO)

Fanny Smith Crenshaw spent her early years in Nashville.  Daughter of John Thomas Smith & Elizabeth Shotwell Smith.  John Smith moved his family to Springfield, MO in 1855 after the death of his wife.  FSC graduated 1857 from the Seminary School in Nashville.  Married June 20, 1867 in Green County, MO to prominent Springfield businessman Lewis Allen Dicken ("L.A.D.")Crenshaw (see pendant portrait by Bingham, GCBCRS #2).  Eight children.  Family history describes her as "a strong minded character", talented in music and art, making oil paintings into her old age.  Both Fanny and LAD were said to be personal friends of Bingham and both went for portrait sittings in Springfield (noted by great-great- grandson Thomas T. Crenshaw III). 

     
Medium:
   Oil on canvas 
   
       Size:
   42 x 32 inches
   
Signed:
  

 

Not signed. 

Inscribed reverse: Clara Crenshaw Early--Presented by her Mother.  CCE was the daughter of the sitter Fanny Smith Crenshaw.  This (somewhat confusing) inscription was written by FSC upon gifting the portrait to her daughter CCE.  CCE explained in a note written to Springfield Art Museum regarding her future bequest of the painting: "I have an oil painting by George Caleb Bingham: it is a portrait of my mother, the late Fanny Smith Crenshaw, widow of the late L.A.D. Crenshaw; it was painted around the year 1869."

   
Date:




  

Painted circa 1869 in Springfield, MO  

     
Collections:

   .L.A.D. & Fanny Crenshaw; Fanny Smith Crenshaw (widow); Clara Crenshaw Early (daughter); Springfield Art Museum (Bequest of Clara Crenshaw Early.)
     
Exhibitions:

  First exhibition:  The George Caleb Bingham Catalogue Raisonne Supplement of Paintings and Drawings. Fred R. Kline, Editor. George Caleb Bingham, Portrait of Fanny Smith Crenshaw. Exhibited online at www.GeorgeCalebBingham.org.  Ongoing from August 18, 2006, Santa Fe, NM
 Publications  

 

First publication: The George Caleb Bingham Catalogue Raisonne Supplement of Paintings and Drawings.  Fred R. Kline, Editor.  Record: Portrait of Fanny Smith Crenshaw. Illustration #3. Published online at www.GeorgeCalebBingham.org.  Ongoing from August 18, 2006, Santa Fe, NM.

Note: E. Maurice Bloch was apparently unaware of this painting and did not mention it or include it in his 1986 Catalogue Raisonne, The Paintings of George Caleb Bingham.

  

Fred R. Kline/8.18.06/revised July 2008/Santa Fe, NM

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