Washington Allston was an American painter, poet, and novelist of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, working across both the visual arts and literature.

Born in Charleston in 1779, Allston was educated at Harvard College. Over the course of his life he worked in both the English and French languages, and he was a citizen of the United States throughout his career as a painter, poet, and novelist.

As a painter, Allston worked in the genre of history painting, which remained a defining feature of his output as a visual artist. Beyond painting, he also worked as a poet and novelist, making him a figure who moved between the visual arts and literary forms. His use of both English and French points to engagement with more than one linguistic tradition. In recognition of his work, Allston was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an honor that placed him among recognized figures in the American scholarly and artistic community.

Allston died in Cambridge in 1843, closing a career that had begun in Charleston and passed through Harvard College. The genre of history painting remained a consistent part of his identity as a visual artist, and it stands as one of the concrete markers by which his work as a painter can be identified and described.