Many of his paintings have the hard edges, smooth surfaces, and simplified forms of the precisionists, and their typical subjects—cityscapes and industrial scenes—are sometimes also his, but in general, his works have an emotional element and, as one critic has said, "take on an otherworldly tone" that sets them apart.

[1] In addition to work showing a personal version of precisionism, he produced paintings, drawings, and prints in the social realist, Mexican muralist, and surrealist styles as well as still lifes, portraits, and landscapes that defy easy classification.

[5] Along with the painter, Yasuo Kuniyoshi and sculptor, Robert Laurent, he spent several summer sessions at Field's school in the Perkins Cove section of Ogunquit, Maine.

[10] Hirsch's drawing, House, of 1920 shows some influences of Cézanne and the cubists in its juxtaposed panels and emphasis on the two-dimensional surface of the paper.

[14] A rural landscape, Pastoral Scene, New England, painted in 1926, contrasts sharply with his cityscapes in its rounded contours and blue- and red-toned palette.

In 1927 he showed a circus scene at that year's Salons of America exhibition which a critic found to be witty and more flexible than his "mathematically exact" paintings.

[15] In his solo exhibit at the Bourgeois Galleries that same year he showed three portraits (Mrs. Catherine Grossman, Dr. Michael Ringer, and A Young Girl).

Hamilton Easter Field created the Salons as an alternative to the Society of Independent Artists which he felt unfairly was giving preferential treatment to some of its members.

A small one, Kachinas shows the same careful handling of tones and balancing of pictorial elements as in his earlier work, but its colors are intense and its treatment realistic.

[30] Other subjects from these trips include burros, a bullfight scene, musicians, and an allegorical painting of a priest, soldiers, a man with a bag of money, and three peasants slumbering.

This one, called Scenic and Historic Booneville showed no dark-skinned people and occasioned no local controversy, but there was disagreement between Hirsch and the Treasury Department's Section of Fine Arts.

It included cityscapes (Fiftieth Street and Queensboro Bridge) and social-realist figures (Matador, Muleteer, and Quitting Time) from Mexico and New York, as well as a landscape (New England February), and domestic scenes (Wash Day andDomestic Still Life).

Edward Alden Jewell of The New York Times said these works varied from one another in style with the more recent canvases showing "a simply integrated design" and "agreeable color harmonies".

[41] During his travels in Mexico from 1929 to 1933, Hirsch became friends with David Siqueiros and Diego Rivera and in January 1932 wrote a letter to The New York Times praising the Mexican government's support for its artists.

Hirsch responded to the effect that quality in art wasn't so much dependent on simply being new as it was on fresh interpretation of timeless themes and techniques.