American Art Collaborative

Malvina Hoffman was encouraged to study art at a young age. She began as a painter, and made her first sculpture of her father, a concert pianist and composer. After he died, Hoffman and her mother moved to London, and then Paris, where she convinced Auguste Rodin to take her on as an apprentice. She traveled to distant countries including Japan, India, China, Bali, and Burma, creating 105 sculptures of people from around the world for the Chicago Field Museum’s “Hall of Man.” Although her artwork made her famous, she also used her sculpting ability to help others by making prosthetic limbs and medical models for prenatal study