Investment ideas on the art market. “Russian Americans”. Morris Hirshfild
ARTinvestment.RU   16 июля 2009

ARTinvestment.RU tells about the artist Hirshfilde Morris, one of the main representatives of the American naive art

ARTinvestment.RU continues the series of "Russian Americans" - stories about the artists of Russian origin, have gained prominence in the United States.

Morris Hirshfild (Morris Hirshfield) is considered one of the leading representatives of American naive art. He was born in 1872 in a small Polish town near the border with Germany. Being very young, Hirshfild created a painted wooden sculptures for the local synagogue. At the age of 18 years, the artist emigrated to the United States. He settled in New York and found work in a factory sewing outerwear.

few years Hirshfild and his brother decided to open its own factory. First they sewed women's coats, and then switched to slippers. This business was very profitable. But Morris's health left much to be desired, and in 1935 he was forced to retire. Not knowing how to take their time, he turned to art. At the age of 65 years, much to the surprise of his relatives, Hirshfild began to paint. In just six years, he received a personal exhibition at the New York Museum of Modern Art.

The exhibition featured 30 paintings, mostly pictures of naked women and animals, executed in "primitive" style, something resembling the "unsophisticated" creation of another famous self-taught - Henri Rousseau (Henri Rousseau). One of the distinguishing features of painting Hirshfilda was that he had covered some parts of the canvas patterns, reminiscent of drawing on fabric.

hard to imagine an artist more distant from the world of avant-garde than Morris Hirshfild. He was not interested in "progressive" tendencies, such as cubism, surrealism and abstract art, but tried to imitate the artists of the "traditionalists» XIX century. Like many naive artists, Hirshfild strove for realism, but instead of exact reproduction of the world around him came out something peculiar, referring to the ancient Egyptian and medieval art. His fanciful compositions inspired by many avant-garde: Hirshfilda were listed among the fans of Andre Breton (André Breton), Marcel Duchamp (MarcelDuchamp) and Piet Mondrian (PietMondrian), as well as the collector Peggy Guggenheim (Paggy Guggenheim). Another parallel with Rousseau, who is known to inspire the salon of artists and book arts, but became famous thanks to the support of Guillaume Apollinaire (Guillaume Apollinaire) and his friends.

One of the first people noticed Hirshfilda, was the eminent New York dealer Sidney Janis (SidneyJanis). In 1939, he included two paintings of the artist in the exhibition "The Unknown American Painters", held at MoMA. Two years later the museum acquired several of his works, and in 1943 was the same one solo exhibition. I must say that the critics are not impressed by the decision of the Director Alfred Barr (Alfred Barr) show the works of 70-year-old naive artist: exposure shouting match to the nines. Some members of the Board of Trustees of MoMA also were outraged, and soon Barry was forced to leave his post.

How to write a biographer of Sidney Janis, who had arranged "personalku" Hirshfilda, the exhibition has become one of the most unpopular with critics activities of all that ever passed in the museum. Artist blamed for the fact that the females' two left feet. " He explained this by the fact that samples slippers are made on the left leg. Time will put everything in its place: Hirshfilda works now considered classics of naive art, and "two left feet" - is only interesting feature of his figures.

In the U.S., Morris Hirshfilda considered to be the so-called " self-taught artist »(self-taught artists). Sometimes, their art is called "outsider", although this is not quite true: artists outsiders are doing exclusively for themselves, without looking at the art world. They do not reflect on what is "normal" art, not looking for audiences for his work and sometimes do not even know the names of famous artists. On the contrary, self-taught almost always have any role models, often these artists are looking for recognition in the art world (the same Hirshfild often bring new work to experts of the Brooklyn Museum). Sidney Janis wrote about the "critical innocence" self-taught, which make no distinction between "high", the art museum and the art of "popular" and draw inspiration from the works of titans like painting, and the pictures on postcards, calendars and posters. Thus Hirshfild revered works of some amateur artist, whose work critics called "mediocre" and "klishirovannym».

Hirshfild died in 1946 at age 74. He left 77 works. Most of them are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and a large private collection. At a public auction of his work though rarely, but still appear. Auction record for creativity Hirshfilda is the sum of 510 thousand dollars, which brought the 1999 painting entitled "Girl with a dog." It should be noted that the estimate of the paintings sold on the New York auction Christie's, was only 15-25 thousand! In the 2003 film "Stand for flowers and birds", exhibited at the New York-based Sotheby's, went for 47.5 thousand in the preliminary estimate of 15-20 thousand. Last Hirshfilda work appeared at auction in December last year. At the auction the works of American artists, singing with Christie's, she was sold for 200 thousand dollars in Estimé 150-250 thousand.

Material prepared Yulia Maximova, AI

Source: Self-Taught Art (Ed. Charles Russell) , nytimes.com , artprice.com , Encyclopedia of American Folk Art , gseart.com , artinvestment.ru

P. S. In a series of "Russian Americans" can also be read:

Investment ideas on the art market. "Russian Americans". Louise Nevelson

Investment ideas on the art market. "Russian Americans". Jules Olitskaya