"Howard, who has written extensively about the Founding Father's attitudes toward architecture, has produced in The Painter's Chair a serious work of art history. Alternating Washington's turns in the chair with episodes in the lives of painters such as John Trumbull and Gilbert Stuart, he shows us how the course of human events in the young nation helped to break new ground in image-making as well."—Michael Moynihan, Wilson Quarterly

"[A] lively narrative . . . A novel, ingeniously executed approach to the inspiring man whose dollar-bill likeness is arguably the most reproduced painted image in history."—Kirkus Reviews

"Patron of the arts is not the first association one makes with George Washington, but Howard elegantly makes the case that the founder of the nation also helped establish America’s art. Though architecture, not painting, was Washington’s preferred art, America’s first prominent artists painted him: Charles Willson Peale, John Trumbull, Benjamin West and Gilbert Stuart, the most distinguished American painter of the period. Washington, who Howard argues was 'easier to see and admire than to understand,' is subtly revealed in a narrative that is precisely paced and elegantly composed."—Publishers Weekly