Born into a wealthy Quaker family, Field studied at Harvard and Columbia University and was proficient in five languages. He traveled extensively in Europe as a young adult, studying literature, music, and painting.
Field first came to Ogunquit In the summer of 1902 with young French protégé Robert Laurent in search of a summer home. He began buying property in Perkins Cove and when Laurent’s formal education was complete, the two built a studio and opened the Summer School of Graphic Arts where Laurent taught sculpture and wood carving while Field taught painting and life drawing. Regarded for his influence as a painter, teacher, collector, art critic, and writer, Field served as a major proponent for American Modernism, advocating for non-European traditions and the movement away academic art.
Field’s teaching methods and students were experimental in comparison to Charles Woodbury’s academic following. Field’s contemporaries in Ogunquit included Robert Henri, Walt Kuhn, and George Bellows. According to George Karfiol, son of artist Bernard Karfiol, “Woodbury’s school featured the outdoors: landscape and seashore. Field’s school worked more indoors and featured sculpture and work (drawn) from the nude model. The Woodbury school was Boston-oriented; the Field school was New York-oriented.”
