Frank B Hoffman

Artist
1888-1958
BP: Chicago, IL
LKL: Taos, NM

Renowned as a Western illustrator, painter and sculptor, Frank Hoffman was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1888, growing-up around his father’s New Orleans, Louisiana, racing stables. Through a family friend, Hoffman was hired to make sketches for the Chicago American, later becoming head of the art department. While working for the paper, he had five years of formal art training in private lessons from J Wellington Reynolds, a portrait painter. In 1916, Hoffman went West to paint, living with the Indian tribes and the cowboys. During that time, he also worked as public relations director for Glacier National Park, where he met noted artist John Singer Sargent. In 1920, Hoffman joined the young art colony in Taos, New Mexico. He studied with Leon Gaspard, learning the use of color. Although focusing on his fine art, Hoffman also painted for corporate advertising campaigns and illustrated Western subjects for the leading national magazines in the 1920s. Advertisers including General Motors, General Electric and the Great Northern Railway hired him because they loved his bold, broad brushwork and striking colors. Hoffman became the best-known New Mexico illustrator of the time. As his success grew, he bought his own Hobby Horse Rancho, where he raised quarter horses and kept longhorns, dogs, eagles, burros, and even a bear, as live models. Beginning in 1940, Hoffman was under exclusive contract to Brown and Bigelow for calendar art, producing more than 150 Western paintings. He died in Taos, New Mexico, surrounded by the life he loved and painted.

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