Morris Hirshfield Rediscovered will reintroduce a singular self-taught artist of the 1930s and 1940s to contemporary audiences. As the sole venue for this exhibition, AFAM’s presentation is the most comprehensive gathering of Hirshfield’s work ever assembled. Featuring loans from private and public collections, the exhibition features over 40 of the self-taught artist’s paintings, including iconic works such as Girl with Flowers, Stage Beauties, Parliamentary Buildings, and Inseparable Friends.

The recognition Hirshfield enjoyed from individuals such as Marcel Duchamp and Andre Breton is brought to life in a room dedicated to First Papers of Surrealism. Like Hirshfield, artists including Kay Sage, William Baziotes, and Yves Tanguy were featured in the 1942 exhibition, and their works will be displayed at AFAM alongside Hirshfield’s Girl with Pigeons.

Hirshfield’s career as a tailor maker will be represented by reproductions of the technical drawings that accompanied his patents for shoes, slippers, and “foot appliances.” His slipper designs were variously adorned with pompoms, rosettes, buckles, tassels, or figure eights and speak to the originality and ornamental design that would find full expression in Hirshfield’s later paintings. In recognition of this important facet of Hirshfield’s life, contemporary artist Liz Blahd has fabricated boudoir slippers to the specifications of Hirshfield’s patented designs of the 1920s and 14 will be on view in the galleries.