Irving Fierstein, a peoples’ artist

Irving Fierstein in 2008. Photo: Bob Fierstein

For the better part of the last 75 years, revolutionary peoples’ artist Irving Fierstein used his immense talent to depict the many struggles of working and oppressed people for social and economic justice and against imperialism. In the early 1980s Fierstein created a unique genre of art—striking full-color revolutionary banners thoughtfully composed and painstakingly painted by hand. Hundreds of Fierstein’s banners provided visual focal points in countless marches and rallies in New York and elsewhere for more than two decades.

Fierstein painted his first banner in 1980 when Alexander Haig attempted to seize control of the government. A picture of the banner depicting Haig atop a menacing tank yelling, “I’m in charge,” was carried in dozens of newspapers across the country. Since then, Fierstein painted banners against Reagan cutbacks, affirming lesbian, gay, bi and transgender rights, Jersey City housing struggles, protests against police violence, and any number of U.S. invasions.

Perhaps the most famous image he created was for a 1985 New Years greeting card of two Black fists breaking chains imposed over a map of Africa with the slogan “Free South Africa.” Not only was the design also used on banners, buttons and placards, but the image was adopted all over the world to symbolize the struggle against apartheid. Monica Moorehead, a founder of the U.S. Out of Southern Africa Network, commented, “Irving’s powerful Free South Africa image truly captured the spirit of this heroic national liberation struggle. The image became an important part of mass culture as well, as it appeared in the movies ‘School Daze’ and ‘Cry Freedom’ and also on the front cover of Esquire.”

Not only did Fierstein’s art appear on leaflets and other printed materials, it illustrated articles in Workers World. But Fierstein’s activism didn’t end there. The artist was often the first one on a picket line or at a meeting. Always enthusiastic and optimistic, Fierstein was as generous with his resources as with his talent. He made significant monthly donations to the Workers World Supporter Program for over 30 years.

In 2001 Sara Flounders, an International Action Center co-coordinator in New York, organized an exhibit to show the range of his art work. “It was a spectacular exhibit,” Flounders told Workers World. “The walls of the large IAC Center on 14th Street were covered with paintings expressing rage at the bankers and CEOs, pain for the millions starving during the Iraq Sanctions, the power of the Black Liberation struggle, and the chaos of capitalist plunder interspersed with banners of past demonstrations.

“Working with Irving on planning what to display and how to fit it in the IAC brought back years of struggle and street confrontations.” His daughter Laurie Fierstein, an organizer of Youth Against War & Fascism, Women United for Action and Workers World, said that the show “meant a lot to him.”

Anti-Zionist Jewish fighter

Born of Polish and Rumanian Jewish immigrant parents in 1915, Fierstein discovered his talent and love of art while a youth in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He studied art and architecture at the Hebrew Technical Institute, but, unable to find work in his field, he turned to commercial art at Cooper Union. He also studied fine art at the Art Students’ League and the National Academy of Design, where he won an award in 1937.

Like many youth during the Great Depression, Fierstein joined the progressive movement. In 1935 he attempted to organize a Commercial Artists and Designers Union and helped to paint a giant Times Square billboard in support of Spanish Civil War anti-fascist freedom fighters in 1938. During that time he became active in the Communist Party.

In 1948 Fierstein took a principled stand when U.S. and British imperialism, working with the Zionist movement, occupied Palestine to set up the Israeli settler state. He was vocal in defense of the Palestinian people’s right to their homeland, which was highly unusual for someone raised Jewish. Even though that meant opposing the international socialist movement, which at the time nearly unanimously supported the Israeli state, Fierstein never wavered in his support for the rights of Palestinian people.

Fierstein resumed his art studies in the 1960s when he learned of the beating of civil rights activist Fanny Lou Hamer in a Mississippi jail. His oil of that shameful event painted in 1969 now hangs in the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Social Change in Atlanta. Over the years his oils, acrylics, lithographs, etching and mixed media were exhibited at several fine art New York galleries. This father of four continued to paint into his 90s.

A dedicated chess player, jazz aficionado and vegetarian cook, Fierstein was an accomplished athlete. At age 74 he won gold medals in racewalk races and finished first in his age category in the New York City Marathon. In his 80s Fierstein battled cancer with the same vengeance he pursued politics. He died from respiratory failure on May 25 at age 94.

Fierstein’s contributions to the many struggles he portrayed are legendary. They will be remembered by his many friends, comrades and family on July 19 in New York’s Solidarity Center. Irving Fierstein, presente!