Louis Hirshman

Louis "Lou" Hirshman (1905–1986) was an American artist known for his witty and imaginative use of found objects for caricatures of celebrities and politicians, and in later years for scenes of everyday life. Unlike sketched or painted two-dimensional caricatures, these collages, known as constructions, are reliefs on glass-covered, framed flat boards created using common items and discarded junk, a genre that Bostonia magazine once dubbed the "Out-of-the-Ashcan School." His creations exaggerated the icons of his day, such as Adolf Hitler, Groucho Marx, John F. Kennedy, and Fidel Castro, depicting them with gloves, spools of thread, peanut shells, and chains. Hirshman's most famous artwork was arguably his 1940 representation of Albert Einstein, with the mathematician sporting a wild mop of hair, an abacus chest and shirt collar scribbled with the equation 2+2 = 2+2. In 1977, the piece was purchased by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Although his pieces often engendered laughter as viewers recognized the parts of familiar items that informed the subject as a whole, Hirshman – as well as colleagues—considered these representations serious works of art. In his last period, he shifted into caricaturizing scenes of everyday life and archetypes, all with his clever mix of found objects.