Artist
Frank Hofmann
- Name
- Frank Hofmann
- Date of Birth
- 27 Dec 1916
- Place of Birth
- Prague/Czech Republic
- Date of Death
- 13 Apr 1989
- Place of Death
- Auckland (region)/New Zealand
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Artworks
Biography
Frank Hofmann was born in Prague in 1916, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. At 16 he joined the Prague Photographic Society, whose prevailing aesthetic was informed by a respect for pictorialism and a vital interest in the New Photography then dominating the photographic avant-garde.
In early 1940, Hofmann (who was Jewish) escaped to England after the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, and soon emigrated to Christchurch where he established himself as a freelance photographer. He secured work at Standish and Preece’s studio, and later worked for Clifton Firth in Auckland, before establishing his own photographic studio, Christopher Bede Studios, in the early 1950s.
Hofmann's work delves into the camera's capacity to express heightened emotions and a contemporary essence, drawing on techniques that were pivotal to the modern photography movements of the 1920s and 1930s. His images transformed the ordinary and frequently employ ambiguity, a lyrical interplay of shape, light and shadow, and strange angles. New Zealand art historian Len Bell reinforces the importance of these new techniques: ‘Hofmann’s deployment of pattern, unusual angles, light and shadow, transform those objects into wondrous things and abstract configurations, compelling in themselves.’
L. Bell, From Prague to Auckland: The Photographs of Frank Hofmann (1916-89). (Auckland: Gus Fisher Gallery, 2011)
In early 1940, Hofmann (who was Jewish) escaped to England after the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, and soon emigrated to Christchurch where he established himself as a freelance photographer. He secured work at Standish and Preece’s studio, and later worked for Clifton Firth in Auckland, before establishing his own photographic studio, Christopher Bede Studios, in the early 1950s.
Hofmann's work delves into the camera's capacity to express heightened emotions and a contemporary essence, drawing on techniques that were pivotal to the modern photography movements of the 1920s and 1930s. His images transformed the ordinary and frequently employ ambiguity, a lyrical interplay of shape, light and shadow, and strange angles. New Zealand art historian Len Bell reinforces the importance of these new techniques: ‘Hofmann’s deployment of pattern, unusual angles, light and shadow, transform those objects into wondrous things and abstract configurations, compelling in themselves.’
L. Bell, From Prague to Auckland: The Photographs of Frank Hofmann (1916-89). (Auckland: Gus Fisher Gallery, 2011)
Artworks by Frank Hofmann (15)
Inn Window, Austria
Frank Hofmann
1935
Artwork
Reversal Design
Frank Hofmann
1952
Artwork
Photographers bookplate
Frank Hofmann
circa 1945
Artwork
Helen Shaw
Frank Hofmann
1952
Artwork
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