Kirk was exiled from Russia in 1906 because of his anti-Czarist activities. He first came to the United States in 1908, returned to Europe after a few months, but was back in America in 1910 when he settled in Philadelphia. There, he entered the Graphic Sketch Club and the Industrial Arts School in 1915, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1916 where he worked with Emil Carlsen, Cecilia Beaux, Philip Hale, Hugh Breckenridge, and Daniel Garber. In 1918 he won the Cresson Travelling Scholarship which enabled him go back to Europe to continue his studies.
By 1926 Kirk was exhibiting widely in the United States. He received commissions to paint murals in theatres in Philadelphia and in the anthracite coal districts of Pennsylvania. He specialized in paintings of coal miners and the American labor scene in general. He also did still-lifes, landscapes, and paintings of architectural motifs. He was again in Europe in 1925, 1927, 1937, and 1949. Solo exhibtions of his work were held at the Boston Art Club (1940), the Smithsonian Institution, Washington (1942), and the Vose Galleries, Boston (1945).
His credo, as published in the catalogue for the memorial exhibition of his work at the National Arts Club in 1964 read as follows:
What should be my credo other than my work that reflects life around me--episodes of daily struggle and human drama?
Art to me is emotion put into form and color through the medium of my painting, thus giving meaning to elements of space and time.
No trend in art is foreign to me except one that is ephemeral.
My belief is that art must be as lasting as humanity. The art heritage left to the future by artists of today must be as great as is the heritage left to us by the masters of yesterday.
Art to endure must possess force of creative spirit and be part of life and human progress.
In my painting gamut I give preference to the toiler and his station in life, to the miner with his coal-blackened face, the hunchbacked little street he lives on and never ses in the daylight; landscape and still life of social meaning are also my themes.
My approach to art is social realism as are my convictions and general conception of life.
I prefer the ethical to the esthetic and refuse to sacrifice truth.
In 1922 he married Rose Shafendler.
