Gene Hatfield was born in 1925 and grew up in Conway, Arkansas. After being honorably discharged from the Army in 1945, he attended the Arkansas State Teacher’s College, (now the University of Central Arkansas) where he majored in Speech and Drama and minored in Art. In 1947 he received a Bachelor of Arts degree. In order to continue to teach Art at ASTC, he attended the State College of Education at Greeley, Colorado, (now the University of Northern Colorado) where he received a Master of Arts degree in Education in 1948.

In 1955, Hatfield toured France, Italy, Scotland, Switzerland, Germany, England and Holland. He married Nicole Wable, a native of France in 1957. They have 3 children, Hadrian, Marc and Mathilda. In 1960, in Paris he studied painting under Henri Goetz. In 1961 he attended art school in Fountainbleau, France. In the summer of 1965 he studied in Aix-en-Provence with Leo Marchutz. Then, in 1968 he attended art classes in St. Ives, England. Hatfield taught at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway until he retired in 1985. Hatfield has returned to Europe almost every year to make art at his summer home in Le Touquet, France.

Now he lives in retirement in Conway, five blocks from his birthplace home, on Simms Street.