Sabra Field
Sabra Johnson Field (born April 7, 1935) is an American printmaker known for her color woodcuts of the state of Vermont.[1][2] Her work features on a United States postage stamp commemorating the bicentennial of the state. The stamp, which depicts a Vermont landscape scene of a red farmhouse set on rolling green hills with mountains in the background sold over 60 million units.[3][1] She has been called the "Grant Wood of Vermont".[4]
Early life and education
[edit]Field was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on April 7, 1935.[5] She was raised in New York.[6] She attended Middlebury College, where she was mentored by artist Arthur K.D. Healy.[5] Field was the first student to major in art at Middlebury,[7] receiving her art degree in 1957.[7] She then attended Wesleyan University, where she received her Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) in 1959. She was mentored at Wesleyan by Russell T. Limbach, who introduced her to printmaking.[5][8]
Teaching career, move to Vermont, and print work
[edit]After college, Field taught art at several prep schools in Connecticut.[9] In 1969, she divorced her first husband and moved from Connecticut to Vermont with her two sons. They moved into the Tontine Building, a former 19th-century tavern in East Barnard.[7][4] There she began working regularly on woodblock prints. She found Vermont conducive to work, stating that she "became part of a different culture where I could live and work at home in a quiet hamlet that was good for kids and without pretense."[4]
Vermont Bicentennial; postage stamps
[edit]The Vermont Bicentennial poster contest selected one of her works for a 1975 exhibition in Washington, D.C.[10] The selection led to several commissions, including a 1977 series titled Mountain Suite for Vermont Life magazine.[9][10] The United States Postal Service released a postage stamp in 1991 commemorating the bicentennial of Vermont's admission to the Union in 1791 as the 14th state. It featured an image by Field of a "red barn, blue sky and green hills." More than 60 million of the stamps were sold.[4][11]
Art books and mural
[edit]Field was the subject of the books The Art of Place (2002) and In Sight (2004).[12] She installed a large-scale outdoor mural titled Cosmic Geometry on the east wall of the Wright Memorial Theatre on campus of Middlebury in 2010.[13]
Film, children's book, and exhibition
[edit]Sabra: The Life & Work of Printmaker Sabra Field, a documentary film exploring Field's life, was released in 2015. It was directed by Bill Phillips, a film professor at Dartmouth College.[14][4] In 2016, Field and Julia Alvarez published the children's picture book Where Do They Go? The book explores the subject of death and grief in rhyming poem.[15][16][17] A retrospective show of Field's work was held at the Middlebury College Museum of Art in 2017. It featured 100 of her work from 1962 to the present.[4]
Awards and honors
[edit]Middlebury College awarded Field its Alumni Achievement Award in 1984, followed by an Honorary Doctor of Arts in 1991. She was named an Extraordinary Vermonter by Vermont Governor Madeleine Kunin and received the Vermont Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts from Governor Howard Dean in 1999.[6]
Selected commissions
[edit]- Mountain Suite (1977)[9][10]
- Winter Twilight Norwich University (2018)[18]
References
[edit]- ^ a b "Sabra Field show reveals personal peaks and valleys". VTDigger. July 16, 2017. Retrieved May 5, 2026.
- ^ O'Connor, Kevin (January 5, 2014). "New horizons Vermont artist Sabra Field reaches across the universe". Rutland Herald. Retrieved May 5, 2026.
- ^ "29c Vermont single. Postal Museum". United States Postal Service. Smithsonian. 1991. Retrieved May 5, 2026.
The Postal Service commemorated the bicentennial of the state of Vermont with a 29-cent commemorative stamp issued on March 1, 1991, in Bennington, Vermont. The stamp design features rows of tilled soil and a brick-red farmhouse in the foreground with rolling, green hills and mountains in the background. Designed by noted Vermont artist Sabra Field, the stamps were produced in the photogravure process by the American Bank Note Company, and issued in panes of fifty.
- ^ a b c d e f O'Connor, Kevin (July 21, 2017). "Retrospective Presents Sabra Field in Her Own Words". Valley News. Retrieved May 5, 2026.
- ^ a b c "Field, Sabra Johnson (b. 1935)". Vermont Historical Society. Retrieved May 5, 2026.
- ^ a b "Iconic Vermont Artist Sabra Field Discusses Her Work at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center". Brattleboro Museum & Art Center. December 5, 2013. Retrieved May 5, 2026.
- ^ a b c Jones, Rachel Elizabeth. "Artist Sabra Field, a Life and Works in Retrospective". Seven Days. Retrieved May 5, 2026.
- ^ "Printmaker Sabra Field's Curiosity Is Relentless". IRK Magazine. March 11, 2020. Retrieved May 5, 2026.
- ^ a b c "Sabra Field, Now and Then: A Retrospective". Middlebury College Museum of Art. May 26, 2017. Retrieved May 5, 2026.
- ^ a b c O'Connor, Kevin (January 1, 2025). "How 1975 sparked the state Vermonters are in today". VTDigger. Retrieved May 5, 2026.
- ^ Shullins, Nancy (June 25, 1995). "Vermont Artist Creates A State Of Perfection – Sabra Field's Prints Considered A Treasure At Home". The Seattle Times. Retrieved May 5, 2026.
- ^ O'Connor, Kevin (December 13, 2019). "Sabra Field marks 50th year making Vermont art". Bennington Banner. Retrieved May 5, 2026.
- ^ Polston, Pamela (June 7, 2010). "Middlebury's Sabra Field Mural Project Up for Grant". Seven Days. Retrieved May 5, 2026.
- ^ Seife, Ethan de. "Sabra Field on Film: A New Doc Celebrates Her Life and Work". Seven Days. Retrieved May 5, 2026.
- ^ Maughan, Shannon (August 18, 2018). "Social and Emotional Learning Booklist". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved May 5, 2026.
- ^ Blackall, Sophie (April 27, 2018). "How Do You Talk to Children About Death? These Books Can Help". The New York Times. Retrieved May 5, 2026.
- ^ Hallenbeck, Brent. "Julia Alvarez, Sabra Field unite for new picture book". The Burlington Free Press. Retrieved May 5, 2026.
- ^ "Norwich to launch 'Year of Distinction' at Homecoming". Vermont Business Magazine. September 8, 2018. Retrieved May 5, 2026.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
- Living people
- 21st-century American printmakers
- Artists from Tulsa, Oklahoma
- People from Windsor County, Vermont
- Middlebury College alumni
- Wesleyan University alumni
- 20th-century American illustrators
- 21st-century American illustrators
- American stamp designers
- 21st-century American women artists
- Artists from Vermont
- American women illustrators
- 1935 births
- 20th-century American women artists
- Women stamp designers