Painter, printmaker and educator Stefan Hirsch was the son of German-born and naturalized American parents. Born and raised in Nuremberg, Hirsch studied law and art at the University of Zürich and became acquainted with the Dada movement. In 1919, his family emigrated to New York where Hirsch was befriended by teacher and art patron Hamilton Easter Field; in the year of his arrival, his work appeared in an exhibition at the Society of Independent Artists in New York. Hirsch spent several summer sessions at Field's school in Ogunquit, Maine.
His first one-man show was held in New York in 1927. His subjects at that time were architectural in character. The show brought immediate recognition and success and his work of this period was eagerly collected, exemplified by his Lower Manhattan, ca. 1921.
In the 1930s, Hirsch’s work turned toward social realism, and during that time he produced murals as well as paintings and experimented with surrealism. Between 1934 and 1937 he painted a number of murals in the auditorium of Lenox Hill House, New York. In 1938 he took a commission from the Federal Art Project to paint a mural in the Federal Courthouse in Aiken, South Carolina. Called Justice as Protector, the mural had a central figure whose dark skin offended the court's judges and the mural was consequently covered by a drape for many years. In 1943, he was given a commission by the U.S. Treasury Department for a post office mural in Booneville, Mississippi.
While working as an artist, Hirsch also joined the faculty at Bennington College and taught there from 1934 to 1940. From 1940 to 1946, Hirsch taught at the Art Students League of New York. From 1942 until his retirement in 1961 he taught at Bard College and was for most of that time chairman of the art department. He died in New York.