Hyman Hirsh (October 11, 1911, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – November 1961, Paris, France), was an American photographer and experimental filmmaker.
In 1936 Hirsh was employed as a photographer by President Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration, and in 1937 he turned to avant-garde cinema, playing a comic role in the satirical experimental film, Even—As You And I.
Commercial photography work for Vanity Fair, Elle, Réalités and other magazines enabled him to travel widely, and he spent some time in Spain.
[3] Hirsh's many talents led him to build his own optical printer, and he used then-new wire recording equipment to document live jazz.
In 1939 he married Marie Gattman, a dancer and actress with whom he shared an interest in left-wing politics as well as his bohemian lifestyle.
The couple lived in Los Angeles for a short time before moving to San Francisco's Haight Street.
Hirsh's photo work from that period used sharply focused black and white renderings and little manipulation in their process.
Hirsh was then influenced by the social documentary of the Farm Security Administration photographers who recorded the impact of the Great Depression on displaced workers and their families.
Hirsh followed suit, exploring social issues through visages of vacant lots, rusted machinery, and other images of urban decay.
By now Hirsh had moved away from the straight-ahead aesthetic of Ansel Adams and Group f64, and his artistic photography took more cues from the world of experimental film.
In Gyromorphosis (1954), 7 min, made in Amsterdam, Hy Hirsh displays the kinetic qualities of the New Babylon structures of Constant Nieuwenhuys.