biography of Erastus Salisbury FIELD (1805-1900)

Birth place: Leverett, MA

Death place: Sunderland, MA

Addresses: NYC (1842-48); Leverett and Palmer, MA (1848-59); Sunderland, MA (1859-on)

Profession: Painter

Studied: self-taught, except for three months under S. F. B. Morse in winter of 1824-25.

Work: Springfield (MA) Mus. of Fine Art; Shelburne (VT) Mus.; BMFA; Rockefeller Folk Art Center, Williamsburg, VA; NGA; MMA

Comments: Primarily a portrait painter during the first phase of his career (through 1841), he is now best known for his Biblical, historical, and classical paintings made after 1842. His early career started with a brief period of study under S. F. B. Morse, after which he returned to Massachusetts and began traveling as an itinerant portraitist, attaining financial success in Mass. and Connecticut. In 1831 he married Phebe Gilmore of Ware (MA) who later exhibited several paintings in NYC as Mrs. P.G. Field (see entry). The Fields lived in Hartford (CT) and then in Monson and Palmer (MA) from about 1832-42. Despite his training with Morse, he has been called a "folk artist" because of his tendency toward flat, stylized forms, his problems with foreshortening, and his focus on the details of costume and decoration. In 1842 Field moved back to NYC and began to explore more complicated subject matter, producing The Embarkation of Ulysses" (c.1844, Springfield MFA), adapted from a copy of J.W. Appleton's "A City of Ancient Greece with the Return of Victorious Armanent" (1840). In NYC, he also became associated with the daguerreotypist Abram Bogardus, and on his return to Massachusetts in 1848 began advertising himself as a daguerreotypist. His portraits after this date were often based on photographs, and he also made hand-colored photographic portraits. Most of his paintings after 1848 were historical or biblical subjects, sometimes adapted or copied from prints. In 1876, Field completed his most ambitious and well-known work, the grand "Historical Monument to the American Republic" (9' x 13', Springfield MFA). Painted to commemorate the American centennial, Field's visionary monument was comprised of a group of towers, some of which included bas-reliefs based on actual historical paintings by artists such as John Trumbull ("The Battle of Bunker Hill"), Benjamin West ("Penn's Treaty With the Indians"), and others. The painting was accompanied by Field's own Descriptive Catalogue of the "Historical Monument to the American Republic" (Amherst, Mass., 1876).

Sources: G&W; Robinson, "Erastus Salisbury Field," in Lipman and Winchester, 72-79; Robinson, "Erastus Salisbury Field," Art in America (Oct. 1942): 244-253; Dods, checklist of Field's portraits in Art in America (Jan. 1944); NYCD 1842-48; Am. Inst. Cat., 1845, 1847; Karolik Cat., 255-257. More recently, see Baigell, Dictionary; Vlach, Plain Painters: Making Sense of American Folk Art, 16-25; Mary Black, Erastus Salisbury Field, 1805-1900 (Springfield, MA: Springfield Museum of Fine Art, 1984); Davidson, The Eccentrics and Other American Visionary Painters, 88-91; Frederick B. Robinson, "The Eighth Wonder of Erastus Salisbury Field," American Heritage vol. 14, no.3 (April, 1963); 300 Years of American Art, vol. 1, 134"