Career
He was one of ’s leading miniaturists. Along with being the most important painter in at the beginning of the 19th century, at this time, Field was probably the most professionally trained painter to settle in Canada. Daphne Foskett in A Dictionary of British Miniature Painters (1972) wrote that Field was, "one of the best n miniaturists of his time." He worked in the conventional neo-classic portrait style of Henry Raeburn and Gilbert Stuart.
(Field"s miniatures of both are in the Yale University Art permanent collection)
He received his early training at the Royal Academy schools, London, in 1790.
In 1794 he moved to the United States. He took up residence in the nation"s then-capital, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
There he immediately joined a group of artists led by Charles Willson Peale in establishing the Columbianum, or n Academy of the Fine Arts, which was eventually superseded by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1805. Field spent 14 years in the United States, working as a miniature painter in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington, and Boston.
During this period he produced miniatures of George and Martha Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and a wide range of people prominent in the social, economic, and political life of n society.
According to historian Harry Piers, Field was one of the four most highly sought n miniaturists in his time. Two groups of miniatures of George Washington were produced by Field at Martha"s request in late 1800, the first group showing him in civilian dress, the second as general in full uniform. When tensions between and England started to rise in the lead up to the War of 1812, Field remained a loyalist and moved from Boston to Halifax, (1808).
In 1816 he moved to, settling first in Montego Bay and then in Kingston.
He died on 9 August 1819, apparently of yellow fever, and was buried in an unmarked grave in the old "West Ground" cemetery, now called the Strangers" Burial Ground, near the Kingston parish church.