Dr. Benoist Troost
Framed: 50 3/16 × 39 1/2 × 2 inches (127.48 × 100.33 × 5.08 cm)
- 215
Missouri Valley Historical Society, Kansas City, March–April 1914, nos. 2 and 3 (as Portrait of Dr. Troost and Portrait of Mrs. Troost).
An Exhibition of Works of Art Owned by Collectors in Kansas City, Kansas City Art Institute, Mo., March 1923, no. 73.
[“Early American Exhibition”], Kansas City Art Institute, Mo., May 1933, no cat. (as Colonel Benoist Troost).
“The Missouri Artist”: An Exhibition of the Work of George Caleb Bingham, 1811–1879, City Art Museum of St. Louis, April 1934, no. 13.
George Caleb Bingham: The Missouri Artist, 1811–1879, Museum of Modern Art, New York, January 30–April 14, 1935 (traveled), no. 14.
American Classics of the Nineteenth Century, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, October 17–December 1, 1957 (traveled), no. 22.
George Caleb Bingham: Sesquicentennial Exhibition, 1811–1961, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Mo., March 16–April 30, 1961(traveled), no. 26 (as Portrait of Dr. Benoist Troost).
George Caleb Bingham, 1811–1879, National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., October 19, 1967–January 1, 1968 (traveled), no. 30.
Bingham’s Missouri, Saint Louis Art Museum, September 26, 1975–April 11, 1976, no cat.
The Hudson and the Rhine, Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf, April 4–May 16, 1976, no. 23.
Bingham’s Faces of Missouri, Saint Louis Art Museum, February 22–May 13, 1990, no cat.
Bingham to Benton: The Midwest as Muse, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo., February 5–July 31, 2005, no cat.Dr. Benoist Troost is perhaps Bingham's finest portrait. Seating Troost solidly with a commanding outward gaze in an office or library, the artist captured the doctor's physical and community largesse. Bingham likely used a photograph for his model since the canvas was painted soon after Troost's death. The doctor's face is precisely yet softly rendered, and Bingham effectively captured the striking differentiations of fabrics by mixing different tones of black.
Mrs. Benoist Troost, c. 1859;
to Dr. David Rittenhouse Porter, 1884 (as custodian for the Kansas City Medical College);
to Board of Education, Kansas City, Mo., 1905;
to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo., 1935.
M.K. P., “Memories of Early Missouri Drama from an Art Exhibit,” Kansas City Star, May 4, 1933, 6.
“To Lend Bingham Paintings,” Kansas City Times, February 16, 1934, 1.
“Bingham on Missouri,” Kansas City Star, February 19, 1934, C16.
“An Exhibition of the Work of George Caleb Bingham, 1811–1879,” Bulletin of the City Art Museum of St. Louis 19 (April 1934), 22, 25.
“Troost Portrait a Gift,” Kansas City Times, May 4, 1935, 1, 3 (Mrs. Benoist Troost as Mrs. Troost).
“Dr. Troost, by Bingham,” Kansas City Star, May 6, 1935, D17.
“In Gallery and Studio,” Kansas City Star, July 12, 1935, 8.
“Art,” Kansas City Times, July 17, 1935, 7.
George Caleb Bingham: The Missouri Artist, 1811–1879, exh. cat. (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1935), 19.
“Liberal with Art,” Kansas City Star, January 1, 1936, 8.
Albert Christ-Janer, George Caleb Bingham of Missouri: The Story of an Artist (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1940), 96–97.
The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts: Founders and Benefactors (Kansas City, Mo.: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1940), 21 (as Portrait of Dr. Benoist Troost and Portrait of Mrs. Troost).
The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 2nd ed. (Kansas City, Mo.: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1941), 166 (as Portrait of Dr. Troost and Portrait of Mrs. Troost).
Winifred Shields, “Art and Artists,” Kansas City Star, September 23, 1949, 18.
Dorothy Heiderstadt, “Self-Made Painter of Early Missouri Contributed Much to Historical Record,” Kansas City Star, February 18, 1950, 12.
Alice Smith Sebree, “Leaders in the 1890s Had Fine Homes on Troost,” Kansas City Star, June 4, 1950, Centennial sec. 5, 4.
Winifred Shields, “Centennial Exhibition of Missouri Valley Art Opens at Nelson Gallery,” Kansas City Star, June 25, 1950, C1.
“Early Painting in Missouri,” Gallery News (William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts) 16 (June–September 1950), unpaginated.
Fay E. Glenn, “Dr. and Mrs. Benoist Troost, Prominent Citizens of Kansas City in the Nineteenth Century: The Troost Portraits by George Caleb Bingham,” typescript, 1953, NAMA curatorial files.
Lew Larkin, Bingham: Fighting Artist (Kansas City, Mo.: Burton Publishing Company, 1954), 121, 123.
American Classics of the Nineteenth Century, exh. cat. (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Institute, 1957), unpaginated.
Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, Mo.: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 255 (Mrs. Benoist Troost as Mrs. Mary Troost).
John Francis McDermott, George Caleb Bingham: River Portraitist (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1959), 128, 253, 428 (Dr. Benoist Troost as Benoist Troost).
“George Caleb Bingham: Sesquicentennial Exhibition, 1811–1961,” Bulletin (William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts) 3 (1961), 10, 17 (as Portrait of Dr. Benoist Troost).
E. Maurice Bloch, George Caleb Bingham: A Catalogue Raisonné (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967), 107–8.
E. Maurice Bloch, George
Caleb Bingham: The Evolution of an Artist (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University
of California Press, 1967), 1, 172n5, 205–6, 258, 338.
George Caleb Bingham,
1811–1879, exh. cat.
(Washington, D.C.: National Collection of Fine Arts by the Smithsonian
Institution Press, 1967), 62–64.
“Dr. Troost and Cravat,” Kansas City Star, May 14, 1972, 3I.
Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 250 (Mrs. Benoist Troost as Mrs. Mary Troost).
Alberta Wilson Constant, Paintbox
on the Frontier: The Life and Times of George Caleb Bingham (New York:
Thomas E. Crowell, 1974), 127–28 (as Doctor Benoist Troost).
National Society of the Colonial Dames in America, Missouri, Portraits in Missouri: Painted before 1860 (n.p.: National Society of the Colonial Dames in America, 1974), unpaginated.
Albert Christ-Janer, George Caleb Bingham: Frontier Painter of Missouri (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1975), 96–97.
The Hudson and the Rhine, exh. cat. (Düsseldorf: Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf, 1976), 44.
Ross E. Taggart, “American Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri,” Antiques 122 (November 1982), 1032–33, 1035 (Mrs. Benoist Troost as Mary Ann Troost).
Richard Bradley, “The Good Dr. Troost,” Kansas City Star, 14 April 1985, 18.
E. Maurice Bloch, The Paintings of George Caleb Bingham: A Catalogue Raisonné (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1986), 103, 212–13.
Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1991), 76–77.
Michael Edward Shapiro, George Caleb Bingham (New York: Harry N. Abrams, in association with National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1993), 123–25.
Michael Churchman and Scott Erbes, High Ideals and Aspirations: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art 1933–1993 (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 53.
Margaret C. Conrads, “Bingham to Benton: The Midwest as Muse,” American Art Review 17 (January–February 2005), 152–53.
Paul C. Nagel, George Caleb Bingham: Missouri’s Famed Painter and Forgotten Politician (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2005), 43 (as Portrait of Dr. Benoist Troost), 51.
