Society of the Cincinnati

The Painter's Fire: A Forgotten History of the Artists who Championed the American

Join the Department of History for the annual Society of Cincinnati lecture by Zara Anishanslin, associate professor of history and art history at the University of Delaware. Anishanslin recently published The Painter's Fire: A Forgotten History of the Artists Who Championed the American Revolution and the award-winning Portrait of a Woman in Silk: Hidden Histories of the British Atlantic World, and has served as a historical consultant for the Philadelphia Museum of Art as well as Hamilton: The Exhibition.

The war we now call the American Revolution wasn’t only fought in North America with muskets and bayonets. On both sides of the Atlantic, artists — including women, enslaved artists, and patriots of color — played a vital role in shaping revolutionary ideals. The Painter's Fire charts the intertwined lives of three such figures who dared to defy the British crown: Robert Edge Pine, Prince Demah, and Patience Wright. This talk tells the stories of these largely forgotten patriots, armed with paint, canvas, and wax, who risked their lives and reputations to fight for liberty.