John Banvard (1815-1891) was an US panorama and portrait painter known for his panoramic views of the Mississippi River Valley .

John Banvard was born in New York and was educated in high school. When his father went bankrupt, he begun travel around United States and supported himself with paintings he exhibited.

In 1840 he begun to paint large panoramas of whole is Mississippi River valley. He traveled through the area in a boat, made preliminary drawings and supported himself with paintings and hunting. He combined the preliminary sketches and transferred them to a canvas in a building erected for this purpose in Louisville, Kentucky. His largest panorama began as 12 feet (3,6 meters) high and 1300 feet (369 meters) long and was eventually expanded to about half a mile (about 800 meters) although it was advertised as "three-mile canvas". This panorama is now lost.

In 1846 he begun to travel with this panorama in Europe, Asia and Africa and even gave Queen Victoria a private viewing. During his travels he also painted panoramas in Palestine and the Nile River Valley .