William Birt

This portrait of William Birt was painted by Sunderland artist Erastus Salisbury Field. The painting was "rescued from a trash heap" by William Lloyd Hubbard who paid 10 cents for it at an auction held at the Woodbury-Birt home on Old Amherst road about 1940. Hubbard had the picture restored and donated it to the Swampfield Historical Society.

Erastus Salisbury Field

Circa first quarter 19th century

Oil paint on canvass mounted on Masonite panel.
26" wide x 30" high.

Most people who live in Sunderland today are probable unaware that some of the best folk art paintings that hang in many of America's greatest museums were painted right here in Sunderland. Those who travel Route 116 through the South end of town towards Amherst pass right by the long lost studio of itinerant painter Erastus Salisbury Field. Crossing the bridge over Long Plain Brook, on the left is Hubbard hill road. It is here, dug into the hillside, in a crude studio made of stone and lined with boards, Field painted some of his best works.
Paintings done by Field can be found in numerous collections of some of America's finest museums. Several Earth coast museums include Historic Deerfield; Mead Art Museum; Amherst College; Brown Art Center at Smith College; Mount Holyoke College Museum of Art; Springfield Museum of Fine Arts; Worcester Art Museum; Danforth Museum, Framingham Ma; Boston Museum of Fine Art; Bennington, VT Museum; Shelburn,VT. Museum, The Rhode Island School of Design Museum; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; The National Gallery, Washington D.C.; and Colonial Williamsburg; Virginia. Few other artists are as widely accepted as Field is so quintessentially exemplifying their genre.
Recently in 2000, a Madison Avenue, New York City art dealer offered one of three known renditions of Field's "Garden of Eden" for sale at $95,000.
Erastus Field was born in Leverett in 1805, though he lived in many different places in New England, as well as in New York City, where he took painting lessons from Samuel F.B. Morse.
At age 50, being widowed and having to care for his aging father, he moved to a now lost house on Plumtree Road in Sunderland. The house owned by his cousin, the nearby Inn-keeper, Caleb Hubbard.
Field, like many of his cousins, was a farmer, though painting was his life-long ambition, it provided him with supplemental income. During his early years, Field painted mostly portraits. But by the mid 19th century photography was becoming popular, thus rendering portrait painters obsolete. Erastus then turned to painting landscapes and biblical scenes. Some were of local subjects such as Leverett Pond and Rattlesnake gutter. Often, Field would include a view of the Mt. Holyoke range in places where it did not exist, such as the North end of Leverett Pond. Perhaps this added sales appeal to his quickly done works.
Field painted until his death in 1900 at age 95. Many of his paintings were lost to obscurity. In the last fifty years, many paintings have come to light being eagerly sought after by collectors.