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There’s Mark Twain, of course. Herman Melville’s The Confidence-Man, a sort of Canterbury Tales on the river. T.S. Eliot’s “strong brown god—sullen, untamed, and intractable,” and Langston Hughes’ “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” and musicals like Show Boat and Big River, and more music than we can list. But the river first flows through our minds in images. We’ve all seen George Caleb Bingham’s Raftsmen Playing Cards…but what about these? All are from the Saint Louis Art Museum’s collection.
John J. Egan, American (born in Ireland), 1810–82. Panorama of the Monumental Grandeur of the Mississippi Valley, circa 1850. Tempera on lightweight fabric. Eliza McMillan Trust
John Steuart Curry, American, 1897–1946. The Mississippi, 1935. Tempera on canvas mounted on panel. Museum purchase; © John Steuart Curry Foundation
John Frederick Kensett, American, 1816–72. Upper Mississippi, 1855. Oil on canvas. Eliza McMillan Trust
Henry Lewis, American (born in England), 1819–1904. Saint Louis in 1846, 1846. Oil on canvas. Eliza McMillan Trust
Frederick Oakes Sylvester, American, 1869–1915. The Bridge, 1903. Oil on canvas. Gift of Robert R. Corbett
