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Hoffman (Malvina) Papers
850042
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Table of contents
Contributing Institution:
Special Collections
Title: Malvina Hoffman papers
Creator:
Field, Stanley, 1875-1964
Creator:
Dance International (1937)
Creator:
Iacovleff, Alexandre, 1887-1938
Creator:
Lemordant, Jean Julien, 1878-1968
Creator:
Hoffman, Malvina, 1887-1966
Creator:
Meštrović, Ivan, 1883-1962
Creator:
Moore, Marianne, 1887-1972
Creator:
Pavlova, Anna, 1881-1931
Creator:
Rodin, Auguste, 1840-1917
Creator:
Grimson, S. B. (Samuel B.)
Identifier/Call Number: 850042
Physical Description:
150 Linear Feet
(216 boxes, 9 flat file folders, 4 rolls)
Date (inclusive): 1885-1984, undated
Abstract: Comprising letters, manuscripts, photographs, diaries, drawings, and films, the archive documents the life and career of the
American sculptor Malvina Hoffman.
Physical Location: Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory through the
catalog record for this collection. Click here for the
access policy .
Language of Material:
English
.
Scope and Content of Collection
The Malvina Hoffman papers provide comprehensive documentation of the sculptor's life and her career as a sculptor and writer.
The archive includes correspondence, manuscripts, and printed materials, as well as photographs and negatives, motion picture
films, sketchbooks, and drawings. Photograph albums, scrapbooks, and diaries documenting Hoffman's work, travels, and personal
life comprise a large portion of the archive. Drawings, sketchbooks, and photographic studies provide an intimate perspective
of the artist's creative process, particularly the
Bacchanale dance reliefs (1914), and monuments built for the Bush House (1924), the New York World's Fair (1939), and the Epinal Memorial
Cemetery (1948-1960). These are supported by exhibition catalogs and clippings of reviews of Hoffman's work. Small groups
of photographs, catalogs, and correspondence also reveal Hoffman's friendships with artists Auguste Rodin, Ivan Meštrović,
Anna Pavlova, Jean Jacques Lemordant, and Alexandre Iacovleff. Especially significant are the materials Hoffman compiled -
photograph albums, travel logs, and anthropological notes - in preparation for and as documentation of her largest commission,
the 104 sculptures of the
Races of Mankind created for the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago (1929-1933).
The archive is arranged in nine series according to material type.
Series I contains correspondence and personal papers that trace Hoffman's relationships with friends, family members, and
clients as well as the development of her commissions and publications. It is organized in four subseries that often contain
overlapping categories of material:
Series I.A. comprises general correspondence with friends, family, instructors, museums, and clients. Most of the correspondence
consists of letters received by Hoffman, although the files include occasional carbon copies or drafts of letters written
by Hoffman. Original and transcribed correspondence between Hoffman and Auguste Rodin fills one of the boxes. Three files
contain letters from Stanley Field. Also present is significant correspondence with Hoffman's contemporaries and close friends
Ivan Meštrović, Anna Pavlova, J. J. Lemordant, Alexandre Iacovleff, and Marianne Moore. Cashbooks, address books, and papers
regarding Hoffman's properties are also included here.
Series I.B. comprises correspondence, research materials, photographs, and personal documents for commissions related Hoffman's
larger commissions. Correspondence regarding major commission such as the Hall of Man project and the Joslin Hospital relief
panels, as well as lists of clients are included here, as are correspondence and inventories from the foundries and suppliers
that Hoffman worked with. Small drawings for the Joslin Hospital relief panels are included here. Also present are lists of
bronzes cast by various foundries.
Correspondence in Series I.C. addresses activities related to Hoffman's exhibitions, publications, and
lectures. Also included here are invoices related to her book
Sculpture Inside and Out, lists of Hoffman's exhibitions, and a folder containing Hoffman's obituaries.
Correspondence and related materials in Series I.D. pertains to Hoffman's volunteer relief efforts for World Wars I and II
including the Red Cross, Yugoslavian and Serbian war relief, and French artists war relief (Appui aux Artistes). Other letters
and reference materials relate to the Dance International organization and Hoffman's
Dance International Fountain (
Dances of the Races) for the 1939 New York World's Fair. Also included here are miscellaneous correspondence; documents; clippings; press releases;
photographs, studies, and drawings; and inventories and indexes. Among these are indexes to Hoffman's scrapbooks in Series
VIII.
Series II contains Hoffman's date or appointment books, some of which contain diary entries, letters, and other materials.
Series III contains manuscripts and edited drafts of Hoffman's books,
Sculpture Inside and Out (1939),
Heads and Tales (1943), and
Yesterday Is Tomorrow (1965) and also includes publicity materials, letters of endorsement, and reviews. Manuscripts and published copies of several
magazine articles written by Hoffman are also present in this series. Transcripts of lectures given by Hoffman between 1913
and 1949 conclude the series. Correspondence regarding lectures is found in Series I.C.
Series IV comprises exhibition announcements and catalogs; periodical containing articles about Hoffman's work; and clippings
of reviews of Hoffman's work and exhibitions. Clippings, periodicals, photographs, and slides relating to other artists as
well as several anthropological articles are also present here.
Series V comprises photographs, negatives, and copper printing plates related to Hoffman's professional life as well as her
personal life. It is divided into three subseries that often contain overlapping groups of material:
The photograph albums in Series V.A. document Hoffman's field research and photographic studies of the individuals Hoffman
used as life models for the sculptures for
The Races of Mankind exhibit, commissioned by the Field Museum of Natural History in 1930. The albums cover the duration of the project, beginning
in 1930 with Hoffman's eight-month world tour and ending with the installation of the sculptures in the Hall of Man at the
Field Museum in 1933. Included are eight albums devoted to facial studies.
Series V.B. contains photograph albums and binders of photographs documenting Hoffman's professional and personal lives. Several
binders are filled with photographs of her portrait sculptures and major commissions such as the Bush House, the
The Races of Mankind, the Joslin Hospital panels, and the
Dance International Fountain (
Dances of the Races), as well as images of her smaller projects. Also present are photographic studies for the
Bacchanale Frieze, a project of 26 relief panels that Hoffman worked on intermittently for ten years. Complementing these studies are personal
photographs of Hoffman with Pavlova, along with books and concert programs of Pavlova's performances. Other photographs document
Hoffman's travels, such as her trip to Serbia for the Yugoslavian war relief effort and her friendships. Finally, a small
photo archive of work by Auguste Rodin, Ivan Meštrović, and Jean Julien Lemordant is supported by news clippings, scrapbooks,
and exhibition catalogs. Each binder of photographs includes an index to the images contained within it.
Series V.C. comprises negatives, lantern slides, and copper printing plates and includes personal images (Hoffman, family,
and friends), images from Hoffman's world trip, and images of Hoffman's work. Acetate, nitrate, and glass negatives are present
in this subseries. The lantern slides are primarily related to Yugoslavian War Relief although small groups of lantern slides
depicting a ballet performance and views of gardens and garden sculptures are also present. Copper plates used for printing
illustrations of Hoffman's work conclude the series.
The films in Series VI depict events from Hoffman's trip around the world for the Field Museum commission, including documentation
of dancers and dancing; Hoffman and friends; and artists at work. Several of the shorter films repeat or are compilations
of footage from longer films. Most of the films were likely made by Hoffman and/or Grimson. Two films are by Thomas Craven
(
Rodin,
Composers in Clay) and others are by J. J. Cummingham (
Meštrović). A few films are copies of news reels by Pathé News (
An Unfinished Symphony in Stone;
Our World in Review: Art) and Movietone News, ([Cuban Voodoo Dance at Dance International]). Other films were made by the British Film Institute;
Doris Plaister; Mr. H. Griaule, Chief of the Dakar Djibouti Mission; and the Republican National Committee. Included in the
series are original 16mm films, either acetate positives or negatives, as well as the archival masters and copy masters made
by the repository for most of the original films. Additonally, an incomplete set of use copies on VHS videocassettes represent
the repository's first reformatting efforts for selected films.
Series VII contains a variety of materials that Hoffman compiled or collected over her lifetime. Hoffman's travel diaries
contain detailed accounts of the trips she made between 1902 and 1948 and chronicle both her domestic and international travels.
Included are three journals of anthropological notes used for the
Races of Mankind (Hall of Man) commission. A small collection of postcards that Hoffman gathered on her travels, some in albums, depicting
images of art and European cities is present in the series. Thirty-two scrapbooks that Hoffman kept from the time she was
a teenager until the end of her life contain clippings and photographs relating to her work and to art in general. Some of
the scrapbooks are devoted to specific projects or exhibitions, while others are more general in nature. A visitor's book
to Hoffman's studio and exhibitions spans from 1938 to 1961. One box of material holds memorabilia, papers, and assignments
from Hoffman's years at the Brearley School.
Series VIII is organized in three subseries: The sketchbooks in Series VIII.A span Hoffman's start with her formative years
and continue through her career; the large photographs of sculptures and commissions in Series VIII.B. depict some of Hoffman's
sculptures and complement the photographs in Series V; and the working drawings, sketches, and progress photographs in Series
VIII.C. document Hoffman's working methods.
Series IX comprises awards, honorary degrees, and certificates received by Hoffman between 1915 and 1957.
The collection is organized in nine series: Series I: Correspondence and personal papers, 1903-1984, undated; Series II: Datebooks,
1902-1966, undated; Series III: Manuscripts, publications, and lectures, 1913-1966; Series IV: Periodicals, clippings, and
exhibition catalogs, 1915-1982, undated; Series V: Photographs, circa 1910-1964; Series VI: Audiovisual materials, circa 1924-1961,
undated; Series VII: Travel diaries, postcards, scrapbooks, and memorabilia, 1897-1966, undated; Series VIII: Sketchbooks,
drawings, and photographs, 1885-1965; and Series IX: Awards, honorary degrees, 1915-1957.
Malvina Cornell Hoffman, the American sculptor known for her life-size bronzes figures, portraits, and dance sculptures, was
born in New York City on June 15, 1885. She was the youngest child of Richard Hoffman, an English concert pianist and teacher,
and Fidelia Marshall Lamson Hoffman, an amateur pianist from a socially prominent New York family. From the beginning of her
life Hoffman was immersed in an artistic and intellectual milieu, surrounded not only by her parents' music, but by a large
circle of family and friends engaged in a wide range of artistic professions.
Hoffman was educated at home until she was nine or ten years old and then attended private girls' schools on Manhattan's Upper
East Side, first as a pupil at Chapin School and then at Brearley School, then one of the city's top finishing schools. While
still a teenager studying at Brearley Hoffman took evening classes in composition and watercolor at the Woman's School for
Applied Design followed by a "life class" at the Art Students League of New York. She then began night classes at the Veltin
School for Girls, studying sculpture with Herbert Adams and George Gray Bernard, and took Saturday painting classes with John
White Alexander. Hoffman also studied painting and drawing at home with Harper Pennington, who was a family friend, and sculpture
with Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore and another family friend. The heavy schedule she carried as young student
came to be indicative of Hoffman's career of intense artistic production. Throughout her life overwork led to periodic bouts
of exhaustion and illness.
The positive reception of Hoffman's 1909 portrait bust of her father realized under Borglum's tutelage, who had urged her
to translate the clay likeness into marble, encouraged Hoffman to direct her artistic talents towards sculpture. She worked
on the marble bust in Phimister Proctor's studio in MacDougal Alley, an area of converted horse stables, where she frequented
the studios of artists such as James Earle Fraser, Laura Gardin, Edward Deming, and Gertrude Whitney. Completed just two weeks
prior to her father's death in August 1909, the portrait was included in the National Academy of Design's 1910 exhibition.
Consequently, Hoffman's former teacher Alexander, who was then the president of the Academy, further encouraged her to focus
all her attention on sculpture. That same year, her bust of violinist and family friend, Samuel Grimson, was awarded an honorable
mention at the Paris Salon.
After her father's death Hoffman traveled to Europe with her mother in 1910, stopping in England and Italy before settling
in Paris with her sights set on studying with Auguste Rodin. Although the sculptor ignored her first attempts at contact despite
her letter of introduction from Borglum, Hoffman persisted and finally secured the sculptor's attention on her fifth try,
showing him the two marble heads she had brought with her from New York. The talent evident in these works persuaded Rodin
to accept Hoffman as a pupil.
While living in Paris, Hoffman worked as a studio assistant to the American sculptor Janet Scudder and also studied with the
Italian sculptor Emanuele de Rosales, who guided her while working on her first dance sculpture,
Russian Dancers (1911). The statuette was inspired by Anna Pavlova and Mikhail Mordkin's performance of
Autumn Bacchanale which Hoffman and her mother had seen in London. Translating the free movements of modern dance into sculpture soon became
one of the main themes of Hoffman's work.
Russian Dancers won first prize at the 1912 Paris salon.
In Paris Hoffman was introduced to the work of Matisse and other modernists. The chaos that she perceived when viewing their
works repelled her; for the entirety of her artistic career Hoffman instead worked in a variety of naturalistic styles, drawing
inspiration from the French classicist sculptors Jean-Antoine Houdon, François Rude, and Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux and Beaux-Arts
artists such as Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Frederick William MacMonnies, Herbert Ward, and Emmanuel Rosales. By aligning herself
with and gaining the acceptance of established male artists Hoffman found her path to being taken seriously as an artist.
In this she was guided by Janet Scudder who professed just such a strategy. Hoffman was a product of her time and place, and
rather than cleaving to the new ideas she encountered in Paris she advanced her career by using the system she was born into
and knew so well.
After sixteen months abroad a lack of funds forced Hoffman and her mother to return to New York in July 1911. There, at Rodin's
urging, she studied anatomy and dissection at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University. She also met
and became good friends with Pavlova, with the dancer often posing for her while she sketched. Hoffman realized a series of
posters for the Ballet Russe that grew out of these sessions. She also began working on
Bacchanale (1924), a frieze of 26 plaster panels representing Pavlova in the dance in which she first made her reputation. It took Hoffman
a number of years to complete the frieze, as she worked on it whenever Pavlova and male dancers from the troupe were available
for sittings.
Hoffman returned to Paris in the summers to work with Rodin. She also visited and studied at bronze foundries, eventually
becoming a master founder. In 1912, she completed two more dance sculptures,
Bacchanale Russe, depicting Pavlova and Mordkin, and
L'Après-midi d'un faune which was inspired by a performance by Vaslav Nijinsky. While in London in 1914 for an exhibition of her work at Leicester
Galleries, she supervised the installation of Rodin's sculpture in an exhibition of French modern art at Grosvenor House.
Moved by the English soldiers who fought along with the French during World War I, Rodin later donated the entire group of
sixteen sculptures to England.
At the outbreak of World War I, Hoffman returned to New York and worked with the Red Cross. There she also formed the American
chapter of Appui aux Artistes, a war relief effort for the families of French artists who were fighting in the war. She established
a studio at 157 Sniffen Court in Murray Hill, Manhattan, and eventually building a private residence above it. Her landlady
and main benefactor in New York was the philanthropist and collector, Carol Averill Harrington. Hoffman exhibited
Bacchanale Russe;
Les Orientales, a bronze of Pavlova and Novikoff;
Russian Dancers; and her bust of Grimson at the 1915 San Francisco Panama-Pacific International Exhibition, where she received an honorable
mention, and her dance sculptures and lithographs at Brooks Reed Gallery, Boston, in 1917.
After the war Hoffman returned to Paris where her over-life-size bronze,
Bacchanale Russe, was installed in the Luxembourg Gardens in 1919, becoming the first woman to have a sculpture placed there. The sculptural
group was stolen or destroyed, allegedly by Nazis, during World War II, and was never recovered. Hoffman also helped the art
historian and curator Léonce Bénédite, who was also the executor of Rodin's will charged with managing the sculptor's artistic
heritage, to find and reinstall the bronzes that she and Rodin had hidden in the basement of the Hôtel Biron at the outbreak
of the war. That August, at the request of Herbert Hoover, then director of the American Relief Administration, she and Marie-Louise
Emmet embarked on a seven-week tour of American relief efforts in Yugoslavia.
The following year Hoffman began work on
The Sacrifice, a memorial dedicated to Robert Bacon, the former American ambassador to France and to all the Harvard alumni who had perished
in the war. The sculpture of a dead Crusader laid out on a cross with his mother mourning at his head was commissioned by
Bacon's wife Martha for Harvard Memorial Chapel. Hoffman knew the Bacons from her early days in Paris when Martha Bacon had
commissioned her to produce copies of the Houdon portraits then displayed at the American Embassy. In 1923, the finished sculpture
was placed in the Chapel of St. Ansgar in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City where it remained until the
Harvard chapel was completed in 1932.
In 1921, Hoffman completed another bronze dance sculpture,
La Péri, depicting Pavlova and Hubert Stowitts performing Paul Duka's ballet of the same name in which Iskander (Alexander the Great)
encounters a Persian peri or winged spirit. In May of that year, she had her first one person show at Ferargil Galleries.
Hoffman's mother, with whom she had always lived, died in 1922. In 1924, Hoffman finally married her long-time friend Samuel
Grimson and they moved into the newly constructed residence at Sniffen Court. She also completed the
Bacchanale panels. And that year the American businessman, Irving Bush, commissioned Hoffman's first and most significant architectural
sculpture,
To the Friendship of the English Speaking People, for the Bush House, the trade center he was building in London. Commemorating Anglo-American friendship, the project comprises
two monumental figures, representing England and America, jointly holding a torch aloft. The pair is set in an arch surmounting
two columns forming the entryway to the building. Once the figures were installed Hoffman spent the next two months astride
their shoulders eighty feet above the street as she finished sculpting their faces and hair.
In 1925, Hoffman met Ivan Meštrović, the Croatian sculptor, who was in New York for the opening of his exhibition at the Brooklyn
Museum. She invited him to work at Sniffen Court until he found his own studio in the city. During this time both sculptors
made portraits of each other - Hoffman creating an over-life-size bronze of Meštrović now at the Brooklyn Museum, while Meštrović
made a terra cotta bust of Hoffman. A few years later Hoffman traveled to Zagreb to study equestrian sculpture with Meštrović,
and film him at work on his bronze equestrian sculptures of Native Americans,
The Bowman and
The Spearman, for Chicago's Grant Park.
Hoffman purchased the lot at 25 Villa Chauvelot (later 25 Villa Santos-Dumont) in Paris in 1927. There she built Villa Asti,
her Paris home and studio, which was completed in June 1928. The next year she shipped all the finished work she had stored
in Paris over the years to New York where she had her first major solo exhibition at the Grand Central Art Galleries. Comprising
105 sculptures and numerous drawings, the exhibition traveled to venues throughout the United States for the next five years.
At this point in her career Hoffman made her living primarily from portrait commissions and sales of copies of her smaller
dance figures along with the occasional larger commission. Late in 1929, family connections helped Hoffman to secure what
would become her largest commission - executing the sculptures for a new exhibition to be installed in the Hall of Man (Chauncey
Keep Memorial Hall of Physical Anthropology) in Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History. Along with an exhibition devoted
to prehistoric humanity, it was one of two new exhibits approved in 1927 by David C. Davies, the director of the museum, that
together aimed to present the entire story of humankind. Faced with declining public interest in this seldom-visited hall,
museum officials and curators were especially keen to create an exhibition devoted to the living races that was not the dry
taxonomic display tupically found in museums of the time. Informed by the successful role that the window and floor displays
of their department store played in selling merchandise, members of the Field family felt that a lifelike, artistic exhibit
would be key to attracting visitors to the Hall of Man.
Late in 1929, Hoffman met Stanley Field, the president of the museum, at a dinner party and, as she was wont to do with new
acquaintances, approached him about commissioning work from her. Although Stanley Field appeared at the time to be disinterested,
he soon sent his cousin, Henry Field, who was then working under Berthold Laufer, the Field Museum's chief anthropology curator,
to visit Hoffman's studio and assess the suitability of the sculptor's work for the Hall of Man project. Henry Field and Marshall
Field III, a major benefactor of the museum who also made a significant contribution to the Hall of Man, were cousins. Hoffman
was related by marriage to Marshall Field III, through her second cousin, Evelyn I. Field. The Marshall Fields keenly supported
Hoffman for the project. A few months later, in February 1930, Hoffman was invited to the Field Museum to discuss her possible
involvement with the Hall of Man exhibition. At this point the museum was still working under the premise that the sculptures
for the exhibit would be created by several artists, and that they would be modeled in painted plaster with real hair and
glass eyes (Marshall Filed III, who championed figures in bronze had been persuaded by the curators that bronze could not
adequately represent a variety of skin colors). At the meeting, Hoffman was offered the opportunity to participate in the
project as one of the sculptors and she asked to think about it overnight. The next day, she argued persuasively that the
display would be much more cohesive if the figures were executed by a single sculptor. Ultimately Hoffman signed a contract
to be the single sculptor and to produce 20 life-size figures, 27 busts, and 100 heads in plaster, and a central sculptural
group,
The Unity of Mankind, in bronze.
Hoffman began working on the commission using existing plaster casts, measurements, and photographs provided by the museum.
As she worked, she continued to press for the figures to be cast in bronze, arguing that bronzes with patinas toned to convey
skin color would produce more lifelike sculptures than would plaster. By June of 1931, Stanley Field willingly acquisced to
the change in materials. In October 1931, Hoffman embarked on what was publicized as a "worldwide tour" (but which in reality
was confined mostly to Asia) photographing, drawing, and taking anthropological data of "authentic" models for her sculptures.
For seven months Hoffman, accompanied by her husband who served as the expedition photographer, Jean Macao, her assistant
and plaster caster, and Gretchen Green as expedition secretary, traveled through Hawaii, Japan, China, Bali, Java, Malaysia,
India, and Sri Lanka.
As a group, the final 104 bronze sculptures Hoffman produced for the Hall of Man are artistic depictions of racial types which
mediated between competing theories of racial and characteristic traits emerging in the early 1930s such as such pathognomy,
which studied the mobile features of the human body, as opposed to the long-held theories of physiognomy which were based
on measurable, stable features. Yet Hoffman also insisted that her sculptures were also portraits of individuals. Viewed on
a case-by-case basis, some of the sculptures, especially those that Hoffman worked on from life, are more successful as portraits
than others. Still, by weaving a narrative that emphasized the veracity of Hoffman's sculptures and that supported the notion
- and one which Hoffman was far from alone in holding - that by delineating an individual's characteristics a portrait can
signify a type, the Field Museum was well positioned to use them to illustrate a variety of ever-evolving racial discourses.
The Hall of Man opened on June 6, 1933, timed to coincide with the opening of Chicago's Century of Progress International
Exposition. It significantly increased Hoffman's visibility and led almost immediately to two exhibitions of small-scale statuettes
of the Hall of Man sculptures.
Les races humaines which opened in November 1933 at the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadero, was the first time than an American artist had been
invited to exhibit at that museum. This exhibition gave further credence to Hoffman's figures as being both anthropologically
sound and as individual works of art. The
Races of Man exhibition at the Grand Central Galleries followed in January 1934. Both exhibitions were well-received, with the former
becoming the first conduit for the sale of replicas of the statuettes which only increased in popularity with the latter exhibition.
Hoffman and Grimson divorced in 1936. Alone at Sniffen Court she completed
Heads and Tales (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936), an account of her travels for the Field Museum which became a bestseller. The
following year a large exhibition of her sculptures was held at the Virginia Museum of fine Arts in Richmond. Along with her
friend Louise Branch, then the proprietor of New York's English Bookshop, she also conceived of and founded Dance International,
and the two women organized its first program, a six-week exposition at Rockefeller Center which include dance film showings,
dance recitals, and a large exhibition on the art of dance that included Hoffman's own sculptures. Hoffman's work on dance
continued with her
Dance International Fountain (
Dances of the Races) which was commissioned for the 1939 New York World's Fair and installed in Perylon Circle, a spiral garden outside Perylon
Hall. The fountain was destroyed after the fair ended. 1939 also saw the publication of Hoffman's second book,
Sculpture Inside and Out (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1939), an instructional guide to sculpture. The textbook became widely used and also contributed
to the growing number of students who came to her studio.
During World War II Hoffman again joined the Red Cross becoming the air-raid warden for her New York precinct. After the war
ended, she finally returned to Paris in May 1948 after a ten-year absence. While in France she visited the site of the Épinal
American Cemetery and Memorial in the Vosges Mountains where she had been commissioned to create relief panels for the exterior
of the monument. In 1950, she completed the designs which were then carved by Jean Juge. The monument and cemetery were dedicated
in July 1956. Her work on the Épinal project overlapped with that for the World War II Memorial Flagpole (1948) at the former
I.B.M. location in Endicott, New York, which honored I.B.M. employees who had served in the Armed Forces during World War
II. During the 1940s and 1950s, as she had throughout her career, Hoffman continued to sculpt portrait busts, figure, and
medals. Her last major commission, completed in 1956, was for the thirteen relief panels depicting the history and evolution
of medicine which she designed for the façade of Joslin Hospital (Joslin Diabetes Center). Hoffman spent her last years writing
her autobiography,
Yesterday Is Tomorrow (New York: Crown Publishers, 1965). She died at Sniffen Court on July 11, 1966.
Sources Consulted:
Eden, Myrna Garvey. "Hoffman, Malvin." In
Notable American Women: The Modern Period a Biographical Dictionary, edited by Sicherman, Barbara and Carol Hurd Green. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1980.
Hoffman, Didi.
Beautiful Bodies: The Adventures of Malvina Hoffman. Meadville, Pennsylvania: Fulton Books, Inc., 2018.
Hoffman, Malvina.
Heads and Tales. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936
______.
Yesterday Is Tomorrow: A Personal History. New York: Crown Publishers, 1965.
Kim, Linda.
Race Experts: Sculpture, Anthropology, and the American Public in Malvina Hoffman's Races of Mankind. . Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2018.
Kinkel, Marianne.
Races of Mankind: The Sculptures of Malvina Hoffman. . Urban, Chicago, and Springfield: University of Illinois Press.
Kort, Carol. "Hoffman, Malvina Cornell (1885-1996). Sculptor." In
A to Z of American Women in the Visual Arts. Edited by Carol Kort and Liz Sonneborn. New York: Facts on File, 2002.
Peabody, Rebecca. "Race and Literary Sculpture in Malvina Hoffman's
Heads and Tales."
Getty Research Journal, no. 5 (2013). http://www.jstor.org/stable/41825351.
An inventory of the collection was made in 1986 by Tim Netsch, and again in 1990 by Miriam Gaber. The 16mm films were reviewed
by Mary Fenton and Jennifer Young, who compiled a summary of the contents of some of the films. In 1992, Beth Ann Guynn processed
the correspondence, manuscripts, and portions of the glass plates. The scrapbooks, glass plates, and several large portfolios
were processed by Teresa Morales in 1996. Julie Rosenberg completed the processing and cataloging of the collection in June
1997. The finding aid was initially revised in 2016. In 2020, Series X. Motion picture films and negatives was further revised
to clarify that the film reels originally identified as nitrate were determined to be acetate. In 2023, Beth Ann Guynn edited
the finding aid and rewrote most of the notes; she also integrated the former Series X into Series VI which was renamed Audiovisual
materials in 2023.
Acquired in 1985.
Malvina Hoffman papers, 1895-1984, undated, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 850042.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa850042
Open for use by qualified researchers.
Contact
Library Reproductions and Permissions .
Additional papers related to Hoffman's completion of the commission for
The Races of Mankind are held at the Field Museum in Chicago.
Existence and Location of Copies
Selected films from Series VI. Audio visual materials, circa 1924-1961, undated, were digitized by the repository in 2004.
Access is available only to on-site readers and Getty staff:
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/850042s10av
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Journals (accounts)
Microfiche
Microfilms
Diaries
Chicago (Ill.) -- Exhibitions
World War, 1914-1918 -- Civilian relief
Sculpture, French -- 20th century
Sculpture, American -- 20th century
Ethnology
Anthropology
Bronze founding
Motion pictures (visual works) -- 20th century
Gelatin silver prints -- 20th century
Photographs, Original
Postcards
Scrapbooks
Sketchbooks
Women artists -- Archives
Artists -- Correspondence
Photograph albums -- 20th century
Videotapes
Art and Dance
World War, 1939-1945 -- Monuments -- United States
World War, 1939-1945 -- Monuments -- France
World War, 1914-1918 -- Monuments -- United States
Grimson, S. B. (Samuel B.)
Bush House (London, England)
Epinal American Cemetery (France)
Field Museum of Natural History
Pavlova, Anna, 1881-1931 -- Portraits
Meštrović, Ivan, 1883-1962
Moore, Marianne, 1887-1972
Rodin, Auguste, 1840-1917
Iacovleff, Alexandre, 1887-1938
Lemordant, Jean Julien, 1878-1968
New York World's Fair (1939-1940 : New York, N.Y.)