Master of the Two Left Feet

Poised between active life on the one hand and sleep and dreams on the other lies the Slipper: soft and unassuming, it’s worn when you come home from work and are ready to slip into something more comfortable. If life is a battle, a pair of slippers is a deserter taking to their heels. Morris Hirshfield was a Polish Jew who emigrated to New York. He spent most of his life manufacturing women’s coats and slippers. When he retired, he took up painting. Anyone who looks at his paintings (at his women, preferably nude, and his animals, preferably domestic – though let’s not overlook the lion snugly wrapped in a mink stole for a mane, like some good-natured uncle in a sophisticated comedy) comes away with the impression of an absence of conflict and an aura of innocence. Art critics may have dismissed him as a clumsy autodidact, but he was admired by such great avant-garde artists as Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian, and Marcel Duchamp.