1915-1993 · Absecon, New Jersey, USA
A Navy combat veteran who ran a New Jersey junkyard by day and carved Torah arks, whales and the Jersey Devil out of salvaged wood by night.
The life
Hoffman was born in Philadelphia in 1915 and left school after eighth grade when the Depression hit, collecting scrap metal and painting scenes on neighbours’ doors as a boy. He saw combat with the Navy in the Second World War, then settled in Absecon near Atlantic City and built up a thriving junkyard. Alongside the business he carved constantly, producing more than 250 works over his lifetime, many drawn from the Torah and his Jewish upbringing, until his death in 1993.
The work
Painted and polished carvings in elm, mahogany and spruce: tabernacles and biblical scenes, toothed whales and sea creatures from his Navy years, devils, Greek myths and American folk legends including the Jersey Devil itself. His work sits in the American Folk Art Museum in New York, the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum in Williamsburg and the Noyes Museum in New Jersey.
Why we love them
A man who spent all day sorting what America threw away, then went home and carved what it should keep.
Go deeper
- Albert Hoffman at the Outsider Art Fair
- Albert Hoffman on Wikipedia
- Andrew Edlin Gallery
- Where to see outsider art, our full list of museums and collections.
- The glossary, if any of the terms here are new.
Kindred spirits
Howard Finster1916-2001, Summerville, Georgia, USA
John Byam1929-2013, Oneonta, New York, USA
Untrained and unstoppable, like them? Like us?