Snapshots of the Past

Lunch hour / JH. – Historic Reproduction

Lunch hour / JH., 1942 — antique lithograph
Lunch hour / JH., 1942. Antique lithograph from the African American History collection.

(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)

Description

A window into the past: Lunch hour / JH., preserved in this antique lithograph. The original is held by the Library of Congress, so what you hang is a true record of its time.

The framed print arrives ready to hang; the unframed option suits custom framing. It makes a striking addition to a living room, study or office, and a thoughtful gift. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Snapshots of the Past, founded in 2001, has served tens of thousands of customers worldwide.

Lunch hour / JH.

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*Lunch hour*, a 1942 lithograph by Joseph Hirsch, shows a figure caught in a quiet moment of sleep, and the title points to the brief midday break that many workers of the period took for rest. Miller printed the edition, and Associated American Artists, a New York firm that sold affordable prints to a broad public in the 1940s, distributed it. The Library of Congress acquired the work through a purchase prize and added it to its collection in 1944, during a wartime economy that kept many Americans on long shifts. Hirsch signed both the stone and the sheet in pencil, a detail worth noticing in a printed image.

Created / published1942
Medium1 print : lithograph ; 22.8 x 30.1 cm. (image), 28.2 x 36.1 cm. (sheet)
GenreLithographs 1940-1950.
NotesSigned with initials on stone; signed and titled in pencil. DLC Printed by George Miller. Distributed by the Associated American Artists. Inscribed below image: Awarded 2nd purchase prize ; Library of Congress 1944 ; Awarded purchase prize. Copyright by Mrs. Genevieve Hirsch. Copy 2 Ben and Beatrice Goldstein Foundation Collection (Library of Congress). The graphic work of Joseph Hirsch / Sylvan Cole, Jr. New York : Associated American Artists, 1970, no. 5 American prints in the Library of Congress : a catalog of the collection / compiled by Karen F. Beall... Baltimore : John Hopkins Press, 1970, p. 214. Copy 1 Purchase, Pennell fund. Exhibited in: Life of the people: Realist prints and drawings from the Ben and Beatrice Goldstein Collection, 1912-1948, Library of Congress, 1999. Unprocessed in PR 13 CN 2002:170.1454 (box 65, B size)
SubjectsSleeping--1940-1950.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan4,633 × 3,796 px · prints to 15 × 13 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-HPA-220274

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