Stage Beauties by Morris Hirshfield in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 2019

Stage Beauties,1944

Artist: Morris Hirshfield (American (born Poland), 1872–1946 Brooklyn)

Date: 1944

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 40 × 48 in. (101.6 × 121.9 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Gift of Carroll and Donna Janis, 2013

Accession Number: 2013.1118

A cofounder of a women’s coat and suit company, Hirshfield began making art at age sixty-five. His focus and methods in painting extended from his skills as a tailor. Depicting mainly female nudes and women performers, Hirshfield often prepared full-scale drawings of his compositions and traced them onto his canvases as stencil patterns. This process remains visible in Stage Beauties: the pencil tracing marks can be seen through the paint layer. Influential gallery owner Sidney Janis propelled Hirshfield to fame after he discovered the self-taught artist’s work in New York.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/629108