J.H. Field Photographs

Collection

Identifier: MC 539

Staff Only
Select files to request

Scope and Content Note

The collection includes prints made by Field, contact prints made from Field's negatives by the Special Collections Department, glass plate negatives, publications, and other papers pertaining to Field. The collection originally included Field's camera, tripod, focusing cloth, film holders, and awards.

Field described many of his techniques in magazine articles and interviews. It is evident, especially from the negatives in this collection, that most of his "soft focus" effects were obtained by manipulation during the printing process: use of a light-diffusing coating ("ground glass varnish") on the negative, scratching the emulsion to add features or to obscure unwanted parts of the image, drawing on it with pencil or ink, or using ground glass or celluloid screens in printing. See also the descriptions of Field and others on his techniques in Series 4, Folders 6 and 7.

All positive prints are numbered consecutively. Numbers 1-101 make up Series 1 and are prints made by Field. Numbers 102-172 make up Series 2 and are prints made from Field's negatives by Special Collections. In some cases the same image may be found in both series; the images are cross-referenced by number. The glass plate negatives in Series 3 have the same number as their corresponding prints in Series 2, Subseries 2, with the addition of suffix "n." Series 4 contains publications and other papers. Any item pertaining directly to a print in Series 1 or 2 is so noted.

Dates

1899-1931

Creator

Field, Julius Herman, 1869-1936 (Person)

Language of Materials

Materials are in English.

Access Information

Access restrictions apply: Negatives are not available for research without special permission.

Please call (479) 575-8444 or email specoll@uark.edu at least two weeks in advance of your arrival to ensure availability of the materials.

Use Information

No use restrictions apply.

No Interlibrary Loan.

Standard Federal Copyright Laws Apply (U.S. Title 17).

Biographical Note

Julius Herman Field (also called "Fields") was born 19 February 1869 in Waupun, Wisconsin. Son of a contractor and builder, he was trained in the Arts and Crafts tradition. Physical frailness forced him to seek another occupation, so he took up photography. Mostly self-taught, he won second prize with his first photo contest submission. As magazines began publishing his work, he saved enough money to pay for training from a photographer in Waupun. After a years' apprenticeship, he was hired by his teacher and by 1894 had managed to buy a studio in Berlin, Wisconsin.

He hired as his assistant Minnie Bell Dies (born 16 March 1879). She was his bookkeeper, lab technician, retoucher, "official greeter" as Field became increasingly deaf, and eventually his wife as well. Their only child was a son, Burton, born in Berlin.

The Fields, influenced by William Lighton's article about Happy Hollow Farm in The Saturday Evening Post (22 January 1910), moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas, in 1913. (Lighton later enlarged and published "Happy Hollow Farm" as a book, illustrated by Field's photographs.) At first the family lived at 207 North College, while Burton attended the University of Arkansas, finishing in 1933. The Fields then bought a house at 735 West Dickson and took in student boarders. Field's studio was on or just off of the square, on the second floor. Portraits were the "bread and butter" of Field's business, and he did some travelling to photograph children and families in their own homes and gardens, though travelling made him ill.

The bicycle was Field's main means of transportation. (It was only after his retirement that he owned a car, a Model A Ford, which neither he nor Mrs. Field could drive.) Field also was in the habit of taking long walks into the country, especially along railroad tracks, frequently with his camera. Many of his nature pictures were taken early in the morning. He often returned to the same place (he made thirty trips in one case) until the light was just right.

Following a series of heart attacks, Field died 14 January 1936. The body was returned to Waupun for burial. Despite failing eyesight, Mrs. Field stayed in Fayetteville, even continuing to print and sell Field's photographs. She finally went to Richmond, Virginia, to live with Burton, by then a doctor. She died there 7 May 1971.