Morris Hirshfield

Morris Hirshfield (1872–1946) was a Polish-American painter. He "is considered one of the most critically acclaimed self-taught artists of the 20th century" according to the J. Paul Getty Museum.^[1]

Hirshfield was born in Poland, but emigrated to the United States at the age of eighteen. He found employment at a women's coat factory; later, he founded a business with his brother, first manufacturing women's coats, then women's slippers. He retired in 1935 due to failing health.^[2]

Hirshfield began to paint in 1937. He was soon championed by gallerist Sidney Janis, who had a great interest in self-taught artists. Janis included some of Hirshfield's works in a 1939 exhibition, Contemporary Unknown American Painters, and a 1942 book, They Taught Themselves: American Primitive Painters of the 20th Century.^[3] His painting found favor in surrealist circles; he was lauded by André Breton,^[4] and was a participant in the first American surrealist exhibition, First Papers of Surrealism, in 1942.^[3]

He received a one-man show at the Museum of Modern Art in 1943.^[2] The show occasioned some negative criticism; Art Digest referred to Hirshfield as "The Master of Two Left Feet",^[5] and the bad press the show received figured into the demotion of MoMA's director, Alfred H. Barr Jr.^[3]

Hirshfield died in New York City in 1946.^[1]

Only 77 works were created by Hirschfield during his career.^[4] His heavily patterned work, featuring women or animals, is often reminiscent of textiles, perhaps as a legacy of his first career.^[3]

• Morris Hirshfield Rediscovered, American Folk Museum, New York, 2022–23

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