Hamilton Easter Field (1873–1922) was an American artist, art patron, connoisseur, and teacher, as well as critic, publisher, and dealer.

A combination of painter, critic, teacher and editor, he gave all his time and genius to the furtherance of American art...."[1] Field was educated at Brooklyn Friends School whose advanced curriculum included classes in drawing.

[2]: 29  Initially aiming at a career in architecture he attended the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn from 1888 to 1892 and in 1893 enrolled in the Columbia School of Mines, Engineering and Chemistry.

[2]: 32  Field recognized and nurtured Laurent's talent as an artist, eventually bringing him (at age twelve) to live in his home in Brooklyn and thereafter remaining his close associate for the rest of his life.

[6] People he met in Paris, particularly his teacher Collin and the critic Burty, introduced him to Asian art and he soon became first a collector of and then an authority on Japanese prints.

[7]: 84 Over a period of three years, beginning in 1905, Field and his mother made frequent trips to Europe, visiting Paris, London, Rome, Dublin, Florence, Zürich, and Budapest.

[13] One of the completed paintings, "Pipe Rack and Still Life on a Table," now in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art,[14] was intended to be placed over a door to the room.

[2]: 33 [15] Field's favored locale in Maine was a coastal community called Ogunquit that had begun attracting artists at the end of the nineteenth century.

An article in the New York Times describes the fifty works on show as "landscapes, townscapes, marines, figure pieces, and sketches from the coast of Maine and Long Island Sound, from Paris and New York, from France and Italy--even from Finland and Japan"[18] In 1912 Field purchased the building next door to his mother's home and remodeled it from a boarding house into an art gallery on the first two floors with rooms rented out to boarders on the other floors.

[24][note 4] In 1911 Field began to build studios at Perkins Cove in Ogunquit designing them in the form of local fishermen's shacks and using parts from old barns in their construction and by 1914 had begun operating a summer school there.

Field turned it into studios for use as an art school while keeping other rooms to be let out to boarders and made available to needy artists either for free or at low rent.

[7]: 89  Artists who occupied rooms in the boarding house part of the building included Hirsch, Kuniyoshi, Katherine Schmidt, and Elsa Rogo.

[2]: 36  [note 6] Field did not attempt to impart a favored style on his students but rather emphasized individual development based on an instinctive approach to art.

[2]: 26 As Field's aesthetic taste evolved he became more and more attracted to early Americana, including rustic furniture and rugs as well as pictorial art in a naïve style.

In 1902 the contents of his "beautiful" Brooklyn studio received notice, with its seventeenth century fireplace, Renaissance tapestries, Gothic chests, a painting by Fragonard and one attributed to Velázquez, and other antiquities.

"[36] An article published in 1905 focused on the superb view from the third floor windows of Field's studio as well as the "wonderful old French furniture" and two carved oak columns overlaid in gold.

[39] In 1917 a reporter described the lower basement of Field's home "with its rare prints and curios, and the weird and Oriental lighting effects [that] transport one out of matter of fact Brooklyn and into the lazy luxury and the peculiar mysticism of Turkish tradition.

Yasuo Kuniyoshi and his wife the artist Katherine Schmidt continued to live there and, during the 1920s and 1930s others, including the writers John Dos Passos and Hart Crane would as well.

[7]: 103 At the time of Field's death the Brooklyn Daily Eagle invited seven prominent men of the New York art world to pay tribute to his memory.

The artist Gaston Lachaise mentioned Field's enthusiasm, charming optimism, and keen sense of fair play "which have made him stand head and shoulders over the opportunists frequently to be met with in the art world."

A combination of painter, critic, teacher and editor, he gave all his time and genius to the furtherance of American art, and it was to this drain on his vitality that we are deprived of many more years of active support."

Maurice Sterne called attention to Field's "rare nature: dreamer and man of action, lover of beauty irrespective of time and place.

He could appreciate a Chinese masterpiece, a Greek original, or the work of an unknown contemporary: one who not only loved the latter but generously helped struggling earnest workers.

The list included George Biddle, Alexander Brook, Louis Bouché, Emile Branchard, John Cunning, Vincent Canadé, James Carroll Beckwith, Andrew Dasburg, Charles Demuth, Edwin Dickinson, Alfeo Faggi, Arnold Friedman, Wood Gaylor, Samuel Halpert, Pop Hart, Marsden Hartley, C. Bertram Hartman, Stefan Hirsch, Bernard Karfiol, Leon Kroll, Adelaide Lawson, Gaston Lachaise, Robert Laurent, John Marin, Henry Lee McFee, Kenneth Hayes Miller, David Herron Morrison, Georgia O'Keeffe, Jules Pascin, Charles Sheeler, Katherine Schmidt, Florine Stettheimer, Joseph Stella, Maurice Sterne, Eugene Speicher, Max Weber, Abraham Walkowitz, Russel Wright, Arnold Wiltz, and William H. K.

[note 10] Herbert was a highly educated scientist who developed and marketed a system, called the Concilium Bibliographicum, for collecting, organizing, and disseminating information about research in the sciences.

When Edward's import business failed during World War I, he and his wife Lydia (called Lilla), came to live in Field's art school-cum-boarding house at 110 Columbia Heights.

He said that Field was spending extravagantly to indulge his enthusiasms for art, for support of struggling artists, for development of his properties in Brooklyn and Maine, and for maintenance of his "companions," the boys and young men with whom he shared his life.

"[2]: 26  Neither Goodrich nor any other source has linked Field's reported homosexuality with his apparent need to gather around him boys and young men with whom to share his life.

[note 12] That is Raymond Webber, born and raised on a farm in York County, Maine, who, as a sixteen-year-old was recorded as living with Field as his "companion" in 1920.

[2]: 136  The African-American boy might have been Charles Keene, son of the woman who managed Field's boarding house at 110 Columbia Heights.