THE SEABED

Painter of genre scenes; decorator, cartoonist, illustrator and caricaturist.

Originally from Lorraine by his mother, Gaston Hoffmann lived in Metz and studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1902, where he was a pupil of Léon Bonnat and Luc-Olivier Merson and at the Julian Academy of Jules Jospeh Lefebvre for engraving and Tony Robert-Fleury. At the Beaux-Arts in Nancy, he was a pupil of Jules Larcher.

Hoffmann regularly exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français as early as 1905, as well as at the Salon des Humoristes. He was a member of the Société des Artistes Français from 1909 on.

In 1918, he collaborated with Charles Schneider, his friend, met at the Beaux-Arts, whose glassware Épinay-sur-Seine took off with the School of Nancy and was a great success in the 1925s. In 1923, he worked for the Manufacture de Sèvre. The same year, he made the poster for the movie “Vidocq”. In 1925, he made murals for the restaurant Kerhulu in Quebec City: “La Faim” and “La Soif”. These works are now preserved in the National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec, thanks to a donation of Jean Piché in 1983.

Hoffmann was professor of drawing of the City of Paris. He taught drawing and decorative composition at the École des Beaux-Arts in Quebec from 1924 to 1926. In 1946, he decorated the hall of the City Council of Noyon City Hall representing the great times in the history of the city.

In 1935-1936, Hoffmann wrote educational books: “The Human Head” in 1935 and “All Drawing in 40 Lessons” in 1936, intended for primary school teachers. In 1940, 1945, 1946 and 1949, he illustrated books, such as “Boulou et M’Boté” by René Trautmann (1945), “Ardance or the Autumn Valley” by Jean de Montesquiou-Fezensac (1946), “Le droit pratique” by L. Le Baut (1949) and “Paper sculpture by cutting and folding, following the technical rules of planisculpture”, Hoffmann / Bourrelier (1940).

Exhibition: Paris, 2018, Galerie Emeric Hahn, first monographic exhibition.