Joseph Hatfield was born in 1863 in  Kingston,Ontario.  He studied in Paris with Benjamin Constant, Henri-Lucien Doucet and Jules-Joseph Lefebvre.  He exhibited an early work called Une letter de Papa in the Salon of 1891 which announced the many genre scenes to come.  In 1892 he returned to Boston where he grew up.  He won a silver medal at Boston's Charity Mechanics' Association.  He also exhibited at the World's Fair Columbian Columbian Exposition and the Chicago World's Fair of 1893,  the Chicago Art Institute in 1894, Louisiana Purchase Expo, St. Louis World's fair 1904,  The National Academy of Design, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.