John Trumbull experienced the American Revolution firsthand by serving as an aide to American generals George Washington and Horatio Gates and being jailed as a spy. Throughout his wartime experience, he made it his mission to record the conflict, giving visual form to the great and unprecedented political experiment for the citizens of the newly formed United States. Although Trumbull’s contemporaries viewed him as a painter, Trumbull thought of himself as a historian. Drawing on his new book, historian and biographer Richard Brookhiser focuses our attention on the complicated life and legacy of Trumbull, whose paintings portrayed both the struggle and principles that distinguished America’s founding moment.
About the Speaker
Richard Brookhiser is a historian, journalist and biographer who has authored numerous books, including John Marshall: The Man Who Made the Supreme Court (Basic Books, 2018), Founders’ Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln (Basic Books, 2014), James Madison (Basic Books, 2011), George Washington on Leadership (Basic Books, 2008), What Would the Founders Do? (Basic Books, 2006), Alexander Hamilton, American (Free Press, 1999), and Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington (Free Press, 1996). He is currently a senior editor of National Review and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute., His other writings have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Cosmopolitan, The Atlantic Monthly, Time and Vanity Fair.