Arts and Letters

I found myself mourning for Joe Hirsch as for a brother. In many ways we were rivals, we were counterparts. Many of the same things happened to me that happened to Joe.

We both had paintings in the pre-World War II New York World's Fair. Joe's painting, which won the popularity prize, showed a black man telling a white man how things are. That a black man might know more than a white man was unheard of in the 1930s. These are attitudes characteristic rather of the 1980s than the 1930s. That was Joe, prophetic wit, seemingly perverse but valid in the historical stretches.

He was as everybody said a magnificent painter with that authority and richness that Philadelphia training has imparted to so many American artists. His color was chromatically vivid, coruscating; his formats impeccable. If you saw enough paintings by Joe Hirsch you would go out into the street and his outlook influenced everything you saw for hours. You'd see men digging in the street and you'd see their striped barriers and you'd see their warning lights flashing and you'd see the cops in their orange slickers and that's all Joe Hirsch. I mean the whole world is in his work.

And with all that, he had many other parts to him. He was very musical. He had a little book with the themes of great symphonies and concerti and all that. And when he and Gen had people over I used to sit beside him on the piano bench and be very happy when he was playing Beethoven and make faces when he played Chopin, and so it went.

Joe had that kind of crazy numerical thing that musicians have. I mean he would get your telephone number, multiply it by your street number and divide it by your age and give you the product. His mind worked that way. The arithmetical thing was compulsive.

Joe at a party would ask someone a question and before they could answer he would go on and talk to somebody else. He'd talk to perhaps three different people in about five different conversations and keep the thread of everything. No sooner would you think you'd reached him than he'd change the subject. And I say this because I think if Joe were reading this obit he would lose interest and change the subject.