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

by Zara Anishanslin

Told through the lives of three remarkable artists devoted to the pursuit of liberty, an illuminating new history of the ideals that fired the American Revolution.

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 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. Pine, an award-winning British artist rumored to be of African descent, infused massive history paintings with politics and eventually emigrated to the young United States. Demah, the first identifiable enslaved portrait painter in America, was Pine’s pupil in London before self-emancipating and enlisting to fight for the Patriot cause. And Wright, a Long Island–born wax sculptor who became a sensation in London, loudly advocated for revolution while acting as an informal patriot spy.

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.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Audiobook, Biography, American History, Historical, Art

382 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 1, 2025

Reviews

[Brad Eastman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a hard time giving a rating to this book. At times I loved it and thought it was a brilliant discussion of life in Colonial America and how the Revolution spread and impacted on very close neighbors. The book also tells the story of three American artists who spent time in London -Patience Wright, who made life-like, sculptures of historical figures in wax, Prince Demah, born enslaved in Massachusetts and sent while still enslaved to London to train as a portrait painter, and Phillis Wheatley, also born enslaved who became a very famous American poet. Ms. Anishanslin is at her best when she examines a work of art and decodes the meaning by placing it in the context of the day. She is also fantastic at understanding place as a driver of culture and ideology. I have read many books on the Colonial period and the Revolution and I still feel Ms. Anishanslin captured unique perspectives that make this a very valuable contribution to the field.

Overlaid on this wonderful history of the Colonial period is a sermonizing condemnation of how racist and sexist people were. I don't disagree, but Ms. Anishanslin should have let the story speak for itself. Instead, there are two books here - a history of the revolution and a polemic on the treatment of women and Blacks in American History. I felt very disjointed at times and think Ms. Anishanslin would have made her point more effectively, albeit more subtlety, if she skipped the preaching. I began to doubt her objectivity and wondered if she had culled "inconvenient facts" in order to support her moral message. She also overplayed the importance of these artists to the Patriot victory, insisting that they were able to provide intelligence that helped end the war, without offering any examples.

Ms. Anishanslin also rejects counter-explanations for the behaviors she condemns. Yes, Colonial America was horribly racist and sexist and exploitative of humans in a way that is morally reprehensible to us today. She tells an amazing story of three individuals who succeeded despite that environment, but fails to see how their very talent and success undermined the dominant ideologies of the day. Repeatedly, Ms. Anishanslin criticizes the enslavers of Prince Demah and Phylis Wheatley, but they were born in a society that imbued them with notions of racial superiority. Perhaps their very success chipped away at the ideological foundations of that society.

[Peter Todhunter · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book more fixated on the lives surrounding major artists and the larger context than the artists and their works. Well written but magnifying the wrong areas.

[Laura Flavin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Painter’s Fire: A Forgotten History of the Artists Who Championed the American Revolution by Zara Anishanslin is a richly detailed and compelling account that re-centers the American Revolution through the lives and artistic contributions of three largely overlooked figures.

One of the book’s greatest strengths is its transatlantic scope. By tracing the interconnected lives of Robert Edge Pine, Prince Demah, and Patience Wright, Anishanslin reveals the Revolutionary era as a deeply cosmopolitan and interconnected world shaped by movement, exchange, and political creativity across both sides of the Atlantic.

The book is particularly effective in showing how art functioned as a form of political action. Rather than treating painting and sculpture as secondary to military or political events, it demonstrates how visual culture actively shaped revolutionary ideology, national identity, and public sentiment.

A notable contribution of the work is its recovery of marginalized voices within the Revolutionary narrative. In particular, the inclusion of Prince Demah as the first identifiable enslaved portrait painter in America adds important depth to the understanding of race, labor, and artistic production in the eighteenth century.

The narrative also succeeds in blending biography with broader historical analysis, offering readers both intimate portraits of individual lives and a larger understanding of the ideological and cultural forces that shaped the American Revolution.

Overall, The Painter’s Fire is an illuminating and beautifully written work of historical scholarship that will appeal to readers interested in American history, art history, Atlantic world studies, biography, and the cultural dimensions of revolution.

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

An awful book. Horrible to listen to on Audio. It is very dull, tedious, repetitive (the same facts and insights often repeated three or four times) choppy, poorly written, grossly over written. The author consistently used fifteen words where five would easily do. It’s almost as if the author was paid by the word. The book easily could have been 65 pages less with a good editor.
Christopher Hitchens would have eviscerated this book I reckon.
In addition, there is a tedious, almost patronizing tone to the prose, as if the writer is finger wagging at one as she tells one the story. Its almost as if she is trying to lecture one on morality. Childish Over-explanations (“ slavery was bad because…”) abound and there is much speculative gap filling of facts.
Sometimes the insights and historical background is interesting, but often there are huge gaps in the story, which are easily filled. This reviewer for example was able to find Revolutionary service records for one artist mentioned within 15 minutes on line. This aspect of the artists’ career was left vacant in the book.
As another reviewer stated, the subject matter is interesting, but the writing is awful.
I was honestly glad when the book ended.

[Miriam Kahn · Rating 4 out of 5]

An academic study of enslaved and formerly enslaved, free blacks, and women, on both sides of the Atlantic, who painted from the mid-1700’s through the American Revolution. This history is well laid out, the text is fluid and full of black & white illustrations of paintings and sketches.

If you are interested in reading about artists and their work set into an historical context, this is the book for you.

As we kick off the semiquincentennial (American 250), there are tons of books to fire the imagination and pump up our pride in our national history. Take uninterruptible time out of your busy evenings and weekends to savor this informative history.

Thanks to the William L. Clements Library (U Mich) Bookworm series https://clements.umich.edu/public-pro... for featuring the author Zara Anishanslin and her engaging study of artists and their paintings.

[Hailee Attorri · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the subject matter but there were a few times I got bored and had to kind of force myself to finish. I appreciated the stories of people I hadn’t really heard of and the intersection of all the major players of the lead up to the American Revolution. I did feel like some things were mentioned more than once. But overall, I learned much more about this time period through Art and Writings!

[Kidlitter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A history of the American Revolution that will offer the seasoned expert and amateur historian some fascinating new perspectives on a well-trodden subject - what other elements helped to spark and maintain the American Revolution's fire? Artists who both profited and burned from the cause - this is social history at its best.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was so interesting! I knew very little about the transatlantic cause for American independence, and nothing about artists during that time, enslaved artists and their opportunities (or lack of opportunities) for training, the way transatlantic travel and relations influenced their legal status, and also the revolution. Art is political.

[Dana Palmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting perspective on others who lived during the American Revolution. These artists obviously didn’t fight, but their art pushed forward the narrative of freedom (both for colonials and for enslaved people). Their stories take place in America as well as in London and Paris. This is a very readable history book.

[Pamela Mettler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very good distillation of the forgotten art and artists from the Revolutionary War era.

[Sylvia Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better be a history buff for this one!