Background
Hofman was born Vlastimil Hofmann in Prague to Ferdynand Hofmann, a Czechoslovakian, and Teofila Muzyk Terlecka, a Polish woman.
Hofman was born Vlastimil Hofmann in Prague to Ferdynand Hofmann, a Czechoslovakian, and Teofila Muzyk Terlecka, a Polish woman.
In 1889 Vlastimil"s family moved to Krakow in Poland, where he attended Street Barbara"s School and then the January III Sobieski high school. In 1896, he became a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, where he studied under, i.a., Jacek Malczewski.
In 1899 he went to study painting at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In 1902 he had his first showings in an exhibition by the "Sztuka" society. Further exhibitions followed in Munich, Amsterdam, Rome, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, and Warsaw.
In 1904 he painted the first of his village (or peasant) "Madonnas".
In 1905 he started the cycle of pictures called "Confession" which brought him international recognition. When his professor, Jacek Malczewski, was appointed the Rector of the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts in 1912, Hofman obtained a teaching post there.
With the ourbreak of World War I, in 1914–1920 he lived in Prague and then in Paris, marrying his beloved Ada in 1919. Sometime around 1922, influenced by his friendship with Jacek Malczewski, he changed the spelling of his name from Czechoslovakian to a Polonised "Wlastimil".
Malczewski died in 1929.
In September, 1939 Hofman fled from the Nazi invasion, mainly as a result of hiding Czechoslovakian refugees (including later President, Ludwik Swoboda). He managed to avoid Soviet captivity, though in Pomorzany he witnessed Polish soldiers being transported to camps inside Soviet Russia, among them officers sent to Kozelsk. He reportedly "showed the Polish POWs a lot of compassion and tirelessly painted their portraits on small pieces of cardboard.
The portraits were then to be sent to their families." On all accounts it is then that he befriended Zdzisław Jastrzębiec Peszkowski, who on the day before the transport to Kozelsk left in Hofman"s care the regiment"s money.
According to Hofman biographical notes, he managed to join the soldiers of the Czechoslovakian Legion and with them travelled through Ternopil, Istambul, Haifa and Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem Palestine, which is where he spent the remainder of war. In 1942, he published a book of poetry called Through Darkness to Freedom.
He returned to Krakow in June 1946. In July they received a house there, which they called "Wlastimilówka".
He also produced many portraits of local people, sports figures - especially football players from his favourite Wisła Krakow team - and also self-portraits.
In 1961, he was awarded the Cross of the Order of the Polish Renaissance.
In 1907 he was the first Polish painter to be made a member of the Gallery of the Vienna Secession.