Joseph Hirsch (1910 -1981)

A student of George Luks (1867-1933), the famous Ashcan School artist, Joseph Hirsch trained as a social realist painter. He was widely recognized for his work as an artist-correspondent depicting soldiers in World War II, and received several awards during his lifetime. Notably his painting, Nine Men, won fourth prize at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s landmark exhibition, "American Painting Today—1950" (the Met’s Department of American Art had only formed one year prior).

Despite his professional success, Hirsch faced political challenges. His career was defined by a commitment to the democratization of art and artist’s rights. Hirsch was a member of Associated American Artists, a gallery in New York dedicated to making original art and prints affordable to the public, and later a founding member of Artists Equity, an organization established in 1949 to protect the rights of visual artists. His involvement in the arts community and his perceived leftist views eventually led to him being labeled a Communist sympathizer during the McCarthy era. This political pressure followed his work to the Dallas Museum of Art, where Nine Men was on exhibition; Hirsch’s painting, along with works by Diego Rivera (1886-1957) and George Grosz (1893-1959), was moved to a separate room for visitors to consider their communist "influence" for themselves.