Tibetan for Lhasa, Field Museum, Chicago, Illinois

Malvina Hoffman (1885 – 1966)

Biography

Malay Woman, Field Museum, Chicago, Illinois

Malvina Hoffman was an American sculptor, born in New York City on June 15, 1885, the daughter of concert pianist Richard Hoffman. She gravitated towards sculpture at an early age and by the age of 14 was taking classes at the Art Students League. She later received help from the sculptors Herbert Adams, George Grey Bernard and Gutzon Borglum a friend of her family. Another family friend, Phimister Proctor, allowed her the use of his MacDougal Alley studio for a summer. In 1910 she moved to Paris and eventually was accepted as a student by Rodan. He convinced her to return to New York and spend a year dissecting bodies at the College of Physicians and Surgeons. The education she received there was to pay off when she embarked on her ambitious project to sculpt the Races of Mankind. While working for the Red Cross during and after World War I she traveled to Yugoslavia where she first met sculptor Ivan Mestrovic with whom she was to study a decade later. In 1930 she began working for the Field Museum, sculpting life-sized statues of the various races and eventually completed 105 heads and full-length figures. These were initially set up in the Hall of Man and the stories of her trip to track down the various models for the races form the basis of her first book, "Heads and Tails". During the turbulent 1960s such a presentation of the races was deemed to be racist and the collection was dispersed around the museum, much of it, unfortunately, being relegated to storage.

The Struggle of Elemental Man, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY

Following World War II Hoffman was chosen to execute sculpture for the Epinal American Cemetery and Memorial near Vosges, France. This marks the site of bloody fighting that took place in December 1944 in what became known as the "Battle of the Bulge." It is likely that Hoffman was picked to do this because of the very active role she had played in the Red Cross during both WWI and WWII and it is also perhaps symbolically meaningful because the Germans destroyed several of her works that were located in Paris during their occupation.

Throughout her career dancers fascinated Hoffman and they form the subject matter for several of her well-known pieces. Many of her works were portrait busts: both of significant persons of the time and of working class people that she came in contact with.

Malvina Hoffman died in her studio in New York City on July 10, 1966.

Selected Works

Navaho, Field Museum, Chicago, Illinois

Tamil, South India, Field Museum, Chicago, Illinois

Kalahari Bushman, Field Museum, Chicago, Illinois

Australian Aborigine,Field Museum, Chicago, Illinois

• 105 figures for the Hall of Man, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois 1933
• Russian Dancers
• Bacchanale Russe
• Colonel Milan Pribicevic
• Ivan Mestrovic
• The Sacrifice, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, NY, NY
• Ignace Paderesski both as The Statesman and The Artist
• Column of Life
• Bill Working
• To the Friendship of English Speaking Peoples
• several statues of the Rusian dancer Pavlova, solo and with partners
• Epinal American Cemetery and Memorial, Epinal, France 1958

Sources

• Alexandre, Arsène, Malvina Hoffman, J.E. Pouterman, Éditeur, Paris 1930

• Connor, Janis, and Joel Rosenkranz, Rediscoveries in American Sculpture – Studio Works, 1893 – 1939, University of Texas Press, Austin 1989

• Field, Henry, The Races of Mankind, Sculptures by Malvina Hoffman, Anthropology Leaflet 30, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago 1937

Cock-fight, Java,Field Museum, Chicago, Illinois

• Hill, May Brawley, The Woman Sculptor, Malvina Hoffman and Her Contemporaries, The Bearley School 1984

Brahman, Field Museum, Chicago, Illinois

• Hoffman, Malvina, Heads and Tails. Charles Scribner’s Sons, NY, NY 1936

• Hoffman, Malvina, Sculpture Inside and Out, Bonanza Books, NY, NY 1939

• Hoffman, Malvina, Yesterday Is Tomorrow, Crown Publishers, Inc. NY, NY 1965

• Kvaran, Einar Einarsson, Hunting Hoffman in the Field Museum, unpublished manuscript

• Nishiura, Elizabeth, American Battle Monuments – A Guide to Military Cemeteries and Monuments Maintained By the American Battle Monuments Commission, Omnigraphics, Inc, Detroit, Michigan 1989

• Proske, Beatrice Gilman, Brookgreen Gardens Sculpture, Brookgreen Gardens, South Carolina, 1968

• Rubinstein, Charlotte Streifer, American Women Sculptors’ G.K. Hall & Co. Boston 1990

Links

http://www.sandycline.com/sculpture/malvhoff.html