page_title: Stefan Hirsch
section_title: Early life and education
hierarchical_section_title: Stefan Hirsch / Early life and education
caption_attribution_description: English: Pastoral Scene, New England by Stefan Hirsch, oil on canvas, 1926, 19 x 32 inches
context_page_description: Stefan Hirsch was an American artist. 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 as said, "take on an otherworldly tone" that sets them apart. 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. His work achieved critical recognition from 1919 onward, has been widely collected, and is today found in many American museums including the Phillips Collection, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Corcoran Gallery.
context_section_description: Hirsch was born in Nuremberg, Germany, to parents who were American citizens of German heritage. He studied law and art at the University of Zürich and was there exposed to artists associated with the Dada movement. When he was 20 his family emigrated to New York and there he was befriended by the teacher and art patron, Hamilton Easter Field. Along with the painter, Yasuo Kuniyoshi and sculptor, Robert Laurent, he spent several summer sessions at Field's school in Ogunquit, Maine. His first appearance in an exhibition was in 1919 at the Society of Independent Artists in New York.
caption: Pastoral Scene, New England by Stefan Hirsch, oil on canvas, 1926, 19 x 32 inches
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