"I always wanted to paint."

Morris Hirshfield was a Polish-American self-taught artist who did not begin painting until the age of sixty-five, after a long career as a tailor and slipper manufacturer in Brooklyn.

His paintings often depict people, animals, and interiors, built from dense patterns, striking symmetries, and oddly dreamlike compositions—all infused with his unmistakably unique style. Despite having no formal artistic training, Hirshfield’s highly personal visual world attracted significant attention within the modern art scene, and his work was admired by figures such as André Breton, Marcel Duchamp, and Piet Mondrian. Today, Morris Hirshfield is regarded as one of the most distinctive outsider artists in American art history.