HAMILTON EASTER FIELD (American, 1873-1922). Brooklyn, 1903. Oil on panel. 4 x 6-3/4 inches (10.2 x 17.1 cm). Signed and...

Description

HAMILTON EASTER FIELD (American, 1873-1922)
Brooklyn, 1903
Oil on panel
4 x 6-3/4 inches (10.2 x 17.1 cm)
Signed and dated verso: Hamilton Easter Field Brooklyn 1903

THE JEAN AND GRAHAM DEVOE WILLIFORD CHARITABLE TRUST

Hamilton Easter Field was an important force in the development of modernism in the United States. A painter, art critic, teacher, and publicist, Field used his influence to promote unsung talents he encountered in the New York region (he made his home in Brooklyn). Although he remained somewhat conservative in his own creative expression, as is apparent in the two wonderful urban views of his in the Williford collection which have affinities with work of the emerging Ash Can School, he was a vocal advocate of art that showed the unvarnished truth of modern life. Writing in 1921 for Arts, in defense of the Russian immigrant artist Samuel Rothbort whom he championed, just a year before his untimely death, Field stated: " My feeling is that the antipathy against Rothbort's art is the antipathy which most men and women feel against a plain unvarnished tale of truth. The plowboy at the plow, the milkmaid, the factory hand, enjoy visions of a higher social sphere than that to which they are accustomed. They dream of lords and ladies, and do not wish to have their dreams disturbed. Therefore they resent what they call the vulgarity of Lincoln, of Walt Whitman, of Winslow Homer. For the same reason they resent the art of Samuel Rothbort. Only when such artists gain the applause of the recognized authorities does the resentment begin to die out. " Field operated a school and gallery in his home in the Columbia Heights section of Brooklyn and a summer school that he established at Perkins Cove in Ogunquit, Maine.

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