Sculpting humanity: Works by Rodin’s final pupil on display at Cedar Rapids Museum of Art

CEDAR RAPIDS - Her parents were accomplished pianists, but Malvina Hoffman, born June 15, 1885, in Brooklyn, N.Y., began carving her own niche in the arts 100 years ago.

Entering the 'man's world” of sculpture, she studied under Mount Rushmore creator Gutzon Borglum in her teen years, and later became Auguste Rodin's final pupil, studying with him from 1910 to 1914 in Paris. Their influence is visible in her precision-detailed portraiture work.

'She's really fascinating, because female sculptors, as a genre, are really rare,” said Kate Kunau, associate curator at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art. 'When women got into art, first it was painting, because that was more ‘ladylike.' Sculpture has always been a really physical art. It demands a lot of strength - and she worked in full-size bronzes, and did stone work and plaster.

'It's much more physical than painting, so sculpture is really the last media that women really got into, just because of that physicality,” Kunau said. 'It was very much a man's media.”

That started to change in the 20th century, with Hoffman blazing a trail that took her around the world to capture the various races of mankind at a time when the average person knew very little about anyone living on the other side of the globe.

Her artistic journey is reflected in a yearlong exhibition opening today in two second-floor galleries at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art.

It's a journey that began with singing and painting, but veered into sculpture in her adolescence. Her first finished creation was a bust of her father, piano prodigy and composer Richard Hoffman, shortly before his death in 1909. His reaction? 'My child, I'm afraid you're going to be an artist,” she recounted in her 1936 memoir, 'Heads and Tales.”

A version of that piece is included in the nearly 40 works on display through Aug. 31, 2018. That's just the tip of museum's holdings, but presents a cross-section of her human figures cast in plaster, bronze and marble.

Thanks to her late nephew, Charles Lamson Hoffman, who married Barbara Marshall of Cedar Rapids, the Cedar Rapids museum has 241 of her works in its permanent collection.

Visitors to the Carnegie Library wing can't miss her striking white plaster 'Bacchanale” frieze ringing the room with the lively movement of dancers Mikhail Mordkin and Anna Pavlova.

Like her mentors Borglum and Rodin, Hoffman gravitated toward interpreting the human figure, from creating life-size, full-body sculptures, to heads and delicate hands. All are expressive and ornate, capturing the jewelry, fabric, gestures and gazes of her subjects. The way she revealed their lifelike forms is reflected in a 1930 commission that sent her abroad for five years to showcase humanity's diverse races.

She traveled the globe, and created 104 bronze sculptures for the Hall of Man in Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History. Among the works are 27 life-size full-body sculptures, 27 busts and 50 heads, which she said interpreted humanity from three angles: arts, science and psychology. According to the Field Museum's website, 'the idea was to use sculpture as a way to reveal man to his brother.”

'If you wanted to experience other cultures, this would be the way most people would do it,” Kunau said.

Indeed, more than 2 million people flocked to 'The Races of Man” in its first year at the Field Museum. The collection stayed up until shortly after Hoffman's death in 1966, and was reconfigured for a new exhibition that opened there in January 2016.

Studies from that exotic project will be displayed in the Cedar Rapids display, as well.

'I especially love ‘Bali Girl' - that's one of my favorites,” Kunau said during a gallery walk-through. 'We can just see (Hoffman) pay attention to so much anatomy, which again is something that Rodin definitely influenced.”

On 'Elephant Hunter,” she even carved in the man's facial scars, his necklace and facial hair, and added elephant figures to further reflect his work.

'She really did cover the whole world, so it's really such a cool part of our collection,” Kunau said.

Rodin's influence is visible throughout the collection, including Hoffman's 'Sea and Cliff.” It was created in 1936, long after her time with Rodin, but evokes the feeling of his 1889 sculpture, 'The Kiss,” showing a man and woman entwined in a deeply romantic embrace.

Her Rodin connection points not only to her artistry, but to her tenacity as well. Shortly after her father's death, Hoffman and her mother moved to London, then Paris, where they would live until 1914, when World War I broke out. That prompted them to return to New York.

But it was her meeting with Rodin in Paris that changed her life.

It took her five tries to work her way into his studio, despite having a letter of introduction from someone he knew.

'The fifth time was a charm,” Kunau said of their meeting, as noted in one of Hoffman's numerous memoirs. 'She tells the lovely anecdotal story about (how) he was reciting a poem by a French poet and he got stuck on a line. She supplied the missing verse, and that drew him to her. He also enjoyed her persistence, and the fact that she wasn't put off and kept coming back and kept coming back.”

His legacy was teaching her 'not to be afraid of realism.”

'I think you can definitely see Rodinesque qualities in her sculpture throughout her life,” Kunau said, especially in the truthful way she portrayed her subjects.

'She's not idealizing these forms. You can really get a feel for her hands in the sculpture a lot, which is something I always enjoy,” she said. 'So it's really beautiful, and I think working with Rodin definitely changed the course of her career and made her a much stronger sculptor.”

' What: Malvina Hoffman: A Sculptor's Journey

' Where: Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, 410 Third Ave. SE, Cedar Rapids

' When: Today (8/26) to Aug. 31, 2018

' Hours: Noon to 4 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday Friday, Sunday; noon to 8 p.m. Thursday; 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday

' Admission: Free through Sept. 3; then $7 adults, $6 college students and ages 62 and older, $3 ages 6 to 18, free ages 5 and under and museum members

' Information: Crma.org

l Comments: (319) 368-8508; diana.nollen@thegazette.com