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Artists›Morris Hirshfield
Morris Hirshfield

Morris Hirshfield

Polish-American, 1872
WA-00027607
PaintingNaive Art
Representation
None documented
12
Institutional Exhibitions
9
Works in Collection
20
Assets Indexed
3
Authority-backed Facts
0
Publications Referenced
90%
Profile Completeness

Cultural Positioning

Influence Graph
No influence edges encoded yet.

Authority Records (3)

Selected Institutional Exhibitions

View all exhibitions →
No image
Naive Painting: A Selection from the Museum Collection
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1972
No image
Ways of Looking
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1971
No image
The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1968
No image
Art in the Mirror
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1966–1967
No image
Birds and Beasts from the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1960–1961
No image
XXVth Anniversary Exhibition: Paintings from the Museum Collection
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1954–1955
No image
American Paintings from the Museum Collection
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1948–1949
No image
Paintings from New York Private Collections
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1946
No image
The Paintings of Morris Hirshfield
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1943
No image
Twentieth Century Portraits
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1942–1943
No image
Modern Primitives: Artists of the People
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1941–1944
No image
Contemporary Unknown American Painters
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1939

Field Verification (3 fields)

3 cross-verified · 0 single-source
  • BiographyMoMA· 93%✓
  • Birth yearMoMA· 93%✓
  • NationalityMoMA· 93%✓

Source Registry (1)

About

Why this artist matters now

Morris Hirshfield was an American painter who turned to art in his sixties after a career in manufacturing and garment production. His paintings, executed in oil on canvas, depict animals, nudes, and still lifes rendered in a flattened, densely patterned style that draws from folk traditions and decorative arts rather than academic training. Working in New York during the 1930s and 1940s, Hirshfield built an idiosyncratic visual language characterized by obsessive surface detail, symmetrical composition, and a disregard for perspective. His work anticipates later interest in outsider and self-taught aesthetics.

Source: Moma Bulk 2026 05 04 · Trust score: 92% · Updated 29d ago

Graph relationships

Taste overlap and adjacency

Movement
Naive Art
Medium
Painting
Related Artists
12 in graph
Institutional

Museum Collections

Canonical record

Artworks (9)

View all 9 artworks →

Artwork sources (2)

9 published of 17 catalogued · 16 with image
  • MoMA
    8 publishedof 16 catalogued16 img
  • The Met
    1 published
Record

Images

Artsy artist portrait
Artsy
Haunted House (Art Institute of Chicago)
Art Institute of Chicago
Haunted House (Art Institute of Chicago)
Art Institute of Chicago

Relationships

3
Movements1
Naive Art
Collections2
The Metropolitan Museum of ArtMuseum of Modern Art
Institutional

Representation & Collections

In collection
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
In collection
Museum of Modern Art
New York, US
Record

Exhibitions and timeline

Group ExhibitionNaive Painting: A Selection from the Museum Collection
New York · 1972
Group ExhibitionWays of Looking
New York · 1971
Group ExhibitionThe Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection
New York · 1968
Group ExhibitionArt in the Mirror
New York · 1966
Group ExhibitionBirds and Beasts from the Museum of Modern Art
New York · 1960
Group ExhibitionXXVth Anniversary Exhibition: Paintings from the Museum Collection
New York · 1954