Paul Staiti is the author of Samuel F. B. Morse and Of Arms and Artists: The American Revolution Through Painters' Eyes; the latter was Colonial Dames of America Book of the Year in 2018 and was nominated for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Non-Fiction. He has written on John Singleton Copley, Gilbert Stuart, Winslow Homer, and William Michael Harnett, and has lectured widely at colleges, universities, and museums, including the National Gallery of Art and the Louvre. He holds a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, has been the recipient of two fellowships from the The Metropolitan Museum of Art and three from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Currently he is Professor of Fine Arts on the Alumnae Foundation at Mount Holyoke College.