The Painter’s Fire: A Forgotten History of the Artists Who Championed the American Revolution

Join Dr. Zara Anishanslin for a fascinating look at the ideals that fired the American Revolution as revealed through the lives of three remarkable artists devoted to the pursuit of liberty.

The war that we now call the American Revolution was not only fought in the colonies with muskets and bayonets. On both sides of the Atlantic, artists armed with paint, canvas, and wax played an integral role in forging revolutionary ideals. Zara Anishanslin charts the intertwined lives of three such figures who dared to defy the British monarchy: Robert Edge Pine, Prince Demah, and Patience Wright. From London to Boston, from Jamaica to Paris, from Bath to Philadelphia, these largely forgotten patriots boldly risked their reputations and their lives to declare independence. Mostly excluded from formal political or military power, these artists and their circles fired salvos against the king on the walls of the Royal Academy as well as on the battlefields of North America. They used their talents to inspire rebellion, define American patriotism, and fashion a new political culture, often alongside more familiar revolutionary figures, such as Benjamin Franklin and Phillis Wheatley. Illuminating a transatlantic and cosmopolitan world of revolutionary fervor, The Painter’s Fire reveals an extraordinary cohort whose experiences testify to both the promise and the limits of liberty in the founding era.

Dr. Zara Anishanslin is Associate Professor of History and Art History at the University of Delaware. She has served as a historical consultant for the Philadelphia Museum of Art as well as “Hamilton: The Exhibition.” She is the creator and co-host of a new history podcast, "Thing 4 Things," and the author of the award-winning Portrait of a Woman in Silk: Hidden Histories of the British Atlantic World and The Painter’s Fire: A Forgotten History of the Artists Who Championed the American Revolution.

The content and opinions expressed in these presentations are solely those of the speaker and not necessarily of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.

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