The following biography is from the International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA) webpage:

Irwin Hoffman was born in East Boston in 1901, one of four children of Russian immigrant parents. At the age of fifteen, Hoffman enrolled as a special student at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts School. Upon graduating from high school, he attended as a full-time student on full scholarship.

Hoffman had his first solo show at the age of nineteen at Boston’s Grace Horne Galleries. The press referred to him as “a prodigy portraiture.” In 1924, he received The Paige Traveling Scholarship, enabling him to travel abroad with fellow award recipients. After his travels in Europe, he returned to the United States and established himself in a studio in New York City, which he maintained until his death in 1989.

During the 1930s and 1940s, Hoffman traveled with his brothers who owned a mining company. Their travels took them to Puerto Rico, Mexico and the southwestern United States and Hoffman’s works from this period reflect these travels. Best known as a talented portrait artist, Hoffman later became a skilled etcher of gritty genre scenes.

A catalogue raisonné of Hoffman’s prints completed between 1930 and 1936, entitled Irwin D. Hoffman, was published by AAA in 1936.

Associated American Artists

AAA is the subject of a major touring exhibition entitled Art for Every Home: Associated American Artists, opening at Beach Museum, Kansas State University (from September 16, 2015 to January 31, 2016); then traveling to New York City at the Grey Art Gallery, New York University (from April 19 to July 9, 2016); the American Textile History Museum, Lowell, Massachusetts (from September 16, 2016 to January 2, 2017); and ultimately at the Syracuse University Art Galleries (from January 26 to March 26, 2017).  In conjunction with this national exhibition, a 300-page exhibition catalog, entitled Art for Every Home: Associated American Artists, 1934‒2000, is being distributed by the Yale University Press.