Harry Leslie Hoffman Figurative Paintings

Harry Leslie Hoffman (1871 - 1964) The Artist's Wife (Beatrice Pope) at the Loom, circa 1915 Oil on canvas 30 x 32 inches Housed in a period Newcomb-Macklin frame Provenance: Estate of the artist Private Collection, Massachusetts This painting depicts the artist's wife at the loom, producing textile versions of Hoffman's underwater paintings. The screen shown behind Bea is an underwater scene also painted by Hoffman. The study of this painting is held in the collection of the Wolfsonian Museum in Florida. Harry Leslie Hoffman was born in Cressona, a small community in Pennsylvania's Schuylkill Valley. His mother was an amateur artist who encouraged her son to pursue a career in the arts. In 1893, Hoffman entered the School of Art at Yale University and studied with John Ferguson Weir, the son of Robert Walter Weir. After graduation in 1897, Hoffman moved to New York to continue his studies at the Art Students League. He also traveled to Paris and took classes at the Académie Julien. In the summer of 1902, Hoffman attended the Lyme Summer School of Art, in the town of Old Lyme on the Connecticut coast. The school was headed by Frank Vincent Dumond and was located in a boarding house owned by Florence Griswold. The school eventually grew into an artists' colony and a center for American Impressionism. When Hoffman first arrived as a student, he was not permitted to stay in the house which was designated for the professional artists only. However, his outgoing personality soon won him many friends at the colony. In 1905, Hoffman settled in Old Lyme and worked as a full member of the artist colony. He was particularly influenced by Willard Leroy Metcalf, an Impressionist also working in Old Lyme. Fellow artists later fondly recalled Hoffman's antics at the Griswold house, which included playing the flute and banjo, tap-dancing, singing humorous songs, and performing magic tricks. In 1910 Hoffman...