biographie de Malvina Cornell HOFFMAN (1887-1966)

Birth place: NYC

Death place: NYC

Addresses: NYC

Profession: Sculptor, craftsperson, painter, writer

Studied: Brearley School, NYC; ASL, painting with John W. Alexander & Harper Pennington; sculpture with Gutzon Borglum, Herbert Adams & George Grey Barnard at the Veltin Sch., 1906-; Janet Scudder's studio asst., Paris, c.1910; bronze technique with Emanuele de Rosale, Paris; drawing, modeling & marble carving from Auguste Rodin, Paris, 1910-14

Exhibited: Paris Salon, 1911 (prize); "Russian Dancers" Exhib., Paris, 1911 (prize); AIC; PAFA, 1912-27, 1940-41, 1949, 1954 (gold 1920); Pan-Pacific Expo, San Francisco, 1915 (prize); NAD, 1909; 1917 (prize), 1921 (prize), 1924 (gold medal); NAWA, 1925 (gold); Concord AA, 1925 (prize); Grand Central Art Gal., NYC, 1929 (solo); Stockbridge, 1931 (prize); Musée d'Ethnographie, Paris, 1932 (racial portrait series); Grand Central Gals., NYC, 1930s and Vose Gal., Boston, 1930s (racial portrait series); WMAA, 1936; WFNY, 1939 (dance fountain); VMFA, 1937 (retrospective). Special honors: New York League Bus. & Prof. Women's award, 1935; selected by Career Tours Commissions as one of twelve whose work contributed to human betterment, 1939; decorations: Palmes Académiques, France, 1920; Royal Order of St. Sava III, Yugoslavia, 1921; Legion of Honor, France, 1951. Hon. degrees: Litt.D., Mt. Holyoke College, 1937; D.F.A., Univ. Rochester, 1937, Northwestern Univ., 1945; D.H.L., Smith College; D.F.A., Bates College, 1955. Selected as Woman of the Year," AAUW, 1957."

Member: ANA, 1925; NA, 1931; NSS (fellow); New York Hist. Soc. (fellow); NIAL; Nat. Assn. Women P&S; Arch. Lg.; Soc. Women Geographers; Am. Women's Assn. (hon. member); P&S Gal. Assn.; Pen & Brush Club; NAC.

Work: MMA; BM; stone pulpit, Church of the Heavenly Rest, New York; NAD; Acad. in Rome; Harvard war mem. Chapel; Stockholm Art Mus.; ethnographic full-length figures, Field Mus., Chicago; AMNH; Detroit IA; Luxembourg Mus., Paris; Bush House, London; League of Red Cross Societies, Paris; Queen's Hall, London; CGA; CMA; USPO, Mahanoy City, PA; Metropolitan Opera House, NY; Library, Medical Center, NY; Norton Gal. Art; Frick Library, NY; Hobart College; Springfield Art Mus.; Am. Acad. Arts & Letters; Hackley Art Gal.; Hall of Fame; New York Hist. Soc.; Maryhill (WA) Mus.; Smith College; IBM; many works at Glenbow Fnd., Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Incised reliefs on façade and Eagle above entrance and Angel in the Chapel of the American Military Cemetery, Epinal, France (Vosges); incised panels facade of the Joslin Clinic, Boston, MA; bronze panel of St. Andrew in St. Andrew-by-the-Sea Church. Rye Beach, NH

Comments: One of the great women sculptors of the first half of the 20th century. Daughter of a concert pianist. Went to Italy and England with her mother after her father's death in 1910. Hoffman was part of the Parisian artistic circle that included Matisse, Brancusi, Pavlova, Nijinsky and Diaghilev's ballet corps. While studying with Rodin and throughout the 1920s, Hoffman became known for her sensuous sculptures of modern dancers. In the early 1930s, she traveled to five continents to fulfill a commission by the Field Museum of Natural History (Chicago) to document the races of the world. Cast in bronze, these ethnographic portraits (over one hundred works) were shown in Paris (1932), NYC, and Boston, and eventually installed as the Hall of Man in the Field Museum, Chicago. Following this project, Hoffman traveled to the Southwest and made portraits of Native Americans. Author: Heads and Tales (autobiography, 1936); Sculpture Inside and Out (1939); Yesterday is Tomorrow (autobiography, 1965).

Sources: WW66; WW47; Rubinstein, American Women Artists, 176-82; Baigell, Dictionary; Pisano, One Hundred Years...the National Association of Women Artists, 58; Tufts, American Women Artists, cat. nos. 122-124; Fort, The Figure in American Sculpture, 203 (w/repro.); Falk, Exh. Record Series.