John Trumbull (1756-1843) was the first American painter to produce a series of history paintings; they depict scenes of the Revolutionary War.

John Trumbull, the son of a Connecticut lawyer who became governor of the colony, was born on June 6, 1756. He took some private painting lessons from John Singleton Copley before entering Harvard, from which he graduated at the age of 17. During the Revolutionary War, Trumbull served for a while as aide-de-camp to Gen. Washington but resigned in 1777. In 1780, in connection with mercantile ventures which soon failed, Trumbull sailed to France. He began studying painting with Benjamin West in London, where he was arrested, presumably because of antirevolutionary sentiment in England, and was forced to leave the country.

In 1784 Trumbull returned to England and resumed his studies with West. Trumbull went back to America in 1789. Thomas Jefferson offered to make him his private secretary, promising that little time...