Hamilton Easter Fiel

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Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission MASTERS THESIS M-4817 BOLGER, Doreen A. HAMILTON EASTER FIELD AND THE RISE OF MODERN ART IN AMERICA. University of Delaware (Winterthur Program), M.A., 1973 Fine Arts University Microfilms, A XEROX Company , Ann Arbor, Michigan © 1973 Doreen A. Bolger ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. HAMILTON EASTER FIELD AND THE RISE OF .MODERN ART IN AMERICA BY Doreen A. Bolger © Copyright Doreen A. Bolger 1973 A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the University of Delaware in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Art History M ay, 1973 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. HAMILTON EASTER FIELD AND THE RISE OF MODERN ART IN AMERICA BY Doreen A . Bolger Approved: __________________________________________________ Professor in charge of thesis on behalf of the Advisory Committee Approved: _______________________________________ Chairman of the Department of Art History Approved: ______________________________________ Dean of the College of Graduate Studies Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many individuals and institutions have assisted me in preparing this thesis. I would like to thank Dr. William I. Homer, my adviser, whose enthusiasm for my project has helped to sustain my interest in it. Although I used many research facilities while investigating Field, several institutions and their staffs made exceptional contributions to my work: Garnett McCoy and the staff of the Archives of American Art, Washington, D. C.; John Laurent and Peter Moak of the Department of the Arts, University of New Hampshire; Mrs. Barbara Sevy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art Library; the staff of the Long Island Historical Society and the Brooklyn Public Library; and, Carroll Dickson of the Rembrandt Club, Brooklyn, New York. I must express my appreciation to those who shared their personal recollections of Hamilton Easter Field: Lloyd Goodrich, Mrs. Helen Appleton Read, Dr. William Hinrichs Field, and Mrs. Irvine Shubert. My fellow students at the University of Delaware have been most generous with their time, information, and criticism. A special debt of thanks is due Roberta K. Tarbell, who first suggested the topic to me. Many of my teachers, such as Dr. Gerald Eager, my undergraduate mentor, and M r. A lfred Frankenstein, deserve recognition for encouraging my interest in American art. I would like to thank Dr. Wayne Craven, not only for his academic encourage ment, but also for his personal interest and support throughout my graduate career. Finally, I must thank my parents, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Bolger, with out whom this thesis would not have been possible. To them, I dedicate my work on Field. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PREFACE The celebrated Armory Show of 1913 has long dominated our thinking about American art of the second decade of the twentieth century. This large New York exhibition has been viewed as a major watershed in the introduction of — and appreciation of — modern art into America. Some acknowledgement for the promotion of modern art has been given to select individuals, such as Alfred Stieglitz, Walter Pach, Arthur B. Davies, and Willard Huntington Wright. However, a closer examination of the New York art scene between 1910 and 1920 reveals several other individuals who also contributed to the genesis of American modernism. One of these was Hamilton Easter Field, a dynamic personality who was an art critic with a progressive point of view, a teacher who encouraged the individual artistic expression of his students, and a collector of both the old masters and the avant-garde modernists. He was also a painter with an eclectic style and a gallery owner who exhibited the work of many young American artists. Field's brief but varied career represents a significant contribution to the history of American art. His importance cannot be demonstrated by a consideration of any single aspect of his career; his impact lies instead in the cumulative effect of his many activities. Although several critics wrote about Field briefly during his lifetime, his contribution has been overlooked by art historians. Field's fellow artists paid tribute to him by establishing the Fiamilton Easter Field Art Foundation Collection which is now housed in the Barn Gallery in Ogunquit, Maine. The catalogue for this collectio n contains "A Personal Statement" by Field's friend and protege, Robert Laurent. However, there has - iii - Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. - iv - never been a comprehensive biography of Field, nor has there been a general evaluation of his place in, and contribution to, the history of American art. The purpose of this thesis w ill be to present a concise biography of Hamilton Easter Field and to analyze his role in the introduction of modern art into A m erica. Reconstructing Field's personality and activities is complicated by a lack of primary documentary evidence. There is a small group of Field papers in the possession of the family of Robert Laurent, some of which have been deposited in the Archives of American Art. Field's letters can be found in the correspondence of many of his contemporaries and associates: Robert Laurent, Bernard Karfiol, Walt Kuhn, August Jaccaci, Martin Birnbaum, and William Macbeth — to name but few. in addition, Field's art criticism, v/hich appeared in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and The Arts, contains many of his own opinions and records of his experiences. Finally, several individuals who knew him — Lloyd Goodrich, Mrs. Irvine Shubert, and Mrs. Helen Appleton Read — have shared their reminiscenes of Field with the writer. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... *i P re fa c e ...............................................................................................................................iii Table of C o n te n ts ...................................................................................................... v Chapter i Early Life and Career—Brooklyn, Paris, and Rome: 1873-1913 1 N o te s .......................................................................................................... 8 II Ardsley S tu d io s ....................................................................................... 14 N o te s .......................................................................................................... 21 III Field as a C ritic ............................................................................................26 N o te s .......................................................................................................... 33 IV Field's Point of V ie w ...................................................................................37 N o te s .......................................................................................................... 44 V Field, The Society of independent Artists, and the Salons of A m e r ic a ......................................................................................................

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