Hirshhorn, Joseph H(erman) (1899–1981)

Latvian-born US financier and art collector. He became a stockbroker in 1916, amassed a fortune, and liquidated his holdings just prior to the stock market crash of 1929. He made other fortunes in gold and uranium mines in Canada, and invested much of his money in works of art, especially in sculpture, ranging from Etruscan art to modern American paintings; by the 1960s he owned some 4,000 works. He donated his entire collection to the USA in 1966 to be administered by the Smithsonian Institution. Funds were donated by Hirshhorn and appropriated by Congress for building the Joseph H Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC, which opened in 1974.

He was born in Mitvau, Latvia. His widowed mother emigrated to Brooklyn, New York, in 1907, worked in a sweatshop, and became ill. He and his brothers and sisters went to live among neighbouring families; he became a newsboy and studied on his own to become a stockbroker.