Morris Hirshfield (Polish-American,1872-1946)

Birds on Grass, II, 1944

Oil on canvas

Morris Hirshfield

Inseparable Friends (1941). Morris Hirshfield.

Herman Landshoff ~ André Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst (behind Morris Hirshfield’s 'Nude at a Window'), and Leonora Carrington at Peggy Guggenheim's, 1942. | Münchner Stadtmuseum bkp & The Guardian

Morris Hirshfield ~ Nude at the Window (Hot Night in July), 1941 | MIT Press

''Tiger" by Morris Hirshfield, 1940

‘Tiger’ by Morris Hirshfield, c. 1940.

Morris Hirshfield, The Artist and His Model 1945

Hermann Landshoff, Leonora Carrington, Andre Breton, Max Ernst and Marcel Duchamp, New York, with Morris Hirshfield’s painting nude at the window (1941) at Peggy Guggenheim’s town-house, 1942.

Morris Hirshfield

“Girl in Flowered Dress” (1945)

After retiring as a women’s tailor and footwear manufacturer in 1935, Morris Hirshfield, a Russian-Polish Jewish immigrant living in NYC, began painting at age 65.

While quickly gaining prominence, even earning a solo retrospective at MoMA in 1943, the self-taught painter was ceaselessly derided by critics for his seemingly naive style.

The work on display in Morris Hirshfield Rediscovered at the American Folk Art Museum in NYC shows the opposite: Hirshfield’s singular vision manifests palpably in exuberant figures and colorful patterns on canvas.

Morris Hirshfield (Polish-American,1872-1946)

Tiger, 1940

Oil on canvas

Morris Hirshfeld, Cats in the Snow

Estate of Morris Hirshfield/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY)

For #InternationalTigerDay 🐅 on #Caturday:

Morris Hirshfield (1872-1946)

Tiger, 1940

Oil on canvas

From the Morris Hirshfield Rediscovered exhibition at American Folk Art Museum in NYC.

>”Among 20th-century American paintings, I do not know .. a more unforgettable animal picture than Hirshfield's Tiger."

-ALFRED BARR

When the founding director of The Museum of Modern Art declared this painting "unforgettable," he was responding both to the charisma of Hirshfield's jungle cat and to such fantastical pictorial choices as a painted sky that appears to be an expanse of blue yarn. Such unexpected pictorial associations recall the artist's prior professional life in the garment industry. Hirshfield manipulated paint to echo the woven materials he formerly cut into patterns, sewed and tailored into coats and suits, and sold in a retail shop. Hirshfield's "textile imagination" is especially apparent in Beach Girl. On close examination, virtually every element in the painting (including water, sea, and sky) suggests the weave of a different fabric rather than a natural feature of a beach.<

Arnold Newman ~ Max Ernst (at Peggy Guggenheim's), 1942 [upper right corner : Morris Hirshfield's Nude at the Window] | src MIT Press

Morris Hirshfield ~ Nude at the Window (Hot Night in July), 1941

Morris Hirshfield - Girl in a Mirror