Joseph Hirsch was born in Philadelphia in 1910. He was a painter, muralist, illustrator, and printmaker. He attended the School of Industrial Art between 1928 and 1931, and in 1932, went to New York to study with George Luks. He completed several murals in Philadelphia including Football, Integration, Beginnings of Early Unionism, and Adoption. As a pictorial war correspondent during World War II, Hirsch made about seventy-five paintings and drawings between 1943 and 1944 in the South Pacific, Africa, and Italy.

Hirsch once said that he wanted his work to reveal his beliefs but never turned to propaganda, as so many artists of his time. He did, however, portray people as heroes in a deeply humanistic, positive manner, using an almost caricature-like exaggeration, especially in early canvasses such as Two Men. With classic techniques, he explored prosaic subject matter ranging in theme from washing windows to leading invocations, sometimes with mocking overtones. He has also represented various generalized kinds of human action through the use of monumental human forms.