All Photos By Gail
Between 1913 and 1914, Morris Hirshfield was awarded 24 patents for slipper designs and orthopedic foot devices. Entire pages of the Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office are devoted to his slippers variously adorned with pom-poms, rosettes, buckles, tassels, or figure eights and set off by wraparound ornamental trims. Continue reading Eye On Design: Morris Hirshfield Slipper Designs Fabricated By Liz Blahd
Photo By Gail
Katherine “Kay” Sage (1898 – 1963) came from a wealthy American family. In 1937, she moved to Paris intending to establish herself as an artist. Inspired by Surrealism, she became friendly with Yves Tanguy, whom she married in 1940. Sage was very attracted by the work of Giorgio De Chirico and this influenced her early works. As with her husband, she was drawn to depicting remote landscapes with a far horizon devoid of human figures. Her paintings only rarely show human figures and these are usually wrapped or enveloped in cloth. Thus, we see the The Fourteen Daggers (1942) with two wrapped figures set in a De Chirico metaphysical space. Sage did fewer new paintings after Tanguy’s death in 1955, partly because of her depression and partly because of her decreasing eyesight due to cataracts. Sadly, she took her own life 1963.
Photographed in The American Folk Art Museum in Manhattan.
Photos By Gail
After retiring from the footwear trade in 1935, Morris Hirshfield turned to the pursuit he had always dreamed of: painting. One of his first pictures, Angora Cat (1937), was painted on top of a pre-existing painting that his wife Henriette had framed and hung in their apartment in Bensonhurst Brooklyn. If you look closely, you can see that part of the underlying picture — the lion figurine displayed on the background wall — remains visible. Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Morris Hirshfield, Angora Cat