Morris Hirshfield

Hirshfield was born in Poland, but emigrated to the United States at the age of eighteen.

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.

[1] The show occasioned some negative criticism; Art Digest referred to Hirshfield as "The Master of Two Left Feet",[4] and the bad press the show received figured into the demotion of MoMA's director, Alfred H. Barr Jr.[2] Hirshfield died in New York City in 1946.

[3] His heavily patterned work, featuring women or animals, is often reminiscent of textiles, perhaps as a legacy of his first career.