American Modernist De Hirsh Margules worked in both watercolors and oil with a rich, hot palette and a sophisticated understanding of movement, space and form. He was a fixture in the vibrant Greenwich Village art scene and had over 30 solo exhibitions. He counted Alfred Stieglitz and John Marin as his mentors and close friends, and was absorbed in capturing the essential energy of a scene.

During his lifetime, he exhibited regularly at the Whitney Museum Annuals (1938-1956), and was in numerous group exhibitions, including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Margules won a Brooklyn Museum Purchase Prize in 1943. His works are included in the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Boston Museum of Fine Art, and the Brooklyn Museum of Art, among others.