June 18, 2021 - Today I'm pleased to share the work of the American painter, illustrator, muralist, and printmaker Joseph Hirsch. (1910-1981) Hirsch grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to German and Jewish parents. At 17 he entered the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Arts (a school that taught in the realist tradition  of Thomas Eakins). Post graduation he studied with George Luks in New York City who introduced Hirsch to the Social Realism movement. In the 1930s he worked for the WPA, and during WWII he created imagery for war bonds and was embedded as a war correspondent. Post war he worked as a commercial artist and portrait painter who also produced extensive lithographs. As he matured he experimented with the compositions and space in his painting by layering flat forms on top of each other. He aimed…