Colonial History Lecture Series

Ruggles Hall

Free and open to the public; no registration required.

Join Jane Kamensky as she speaks about her book A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley. In this bold new history, Dr. Kamensky recovers an unknown American Revolution as seen through the eyes of Boston-born painter John Singleton Copley. The award-winning Harvard historian masterfully untangles the web of principles and interests that shaped the age of America’s revolution. Copley’s prodigious talent earned him the patronage of Boston’s patriot leaders, including Samuel Adams and Paul Revere. But the artist did not share their politics, and painting portraits failed to satisfy his lofty artistic goals. An ambitious British subject who lamented America’s provincialism, Copley looked longingly across the Atlantic. When resistance escalated into all-out war, Copley was in London. The magisterial canvases he created there made him one of the towering figures of the British art scene: a painter of America’s revolution as Britain’s American War.

Cosponsored with the Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Illinois in partnership with the University of Illinois History Foundation.

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