"Celebrating the Life and Art of Tom Hoffmann..."
Tribute from Gary Faigin, Founding Artistic Director | July 8, 2025
Tom Hoffmann was a beloved instructor of watercolor at Gage for almost 15 years, and his recent passing is a great loss for the school, as well as a personal loss for me.
Among Watercolor instructors Tom was unique. He used watercolor in an adventurous way well informed by both modernism and the long tradition of plein air watercolor painting. Very few watercolor artists explored the boundary between realism and abstraction as consistently as Tom, and he made clear his desire to reduce complicated scenes to their color and compositional essence.
Tom maintained a robust teaching practice as well as a regular exhibition schedule at the Fountainhead Gallery. He also wrote the book “Watercolor Painting: A Comprehensive Approach to Mastering the Medium”.
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Experimentation always comes with a risk, and it was classic Tom Hoffmann that he experimented with sea water the way he experimented with abstraction, always pushing the envelope.
- Gary Faigin, Founding Artistic Director
A key thing about Tom was his enthusiasm and skill at teaching...
Even a superficial look at the work of his many students made it clear how well he communicated his approach to watercolor: the bold, loose, colorful description that was his trademark. It was not unusual for Hoffmann students to take his classes multiple times, and he was one of those few Gage instructors whose classes would reliably sell out – no small gift to a struggling non-profit.
I personally found Tom to be a delightful colleague, with insights into the process of educating aspiring artists that I always found helpful. I also admired his dedication to his work. One day, after taking a trail to a remote and gorgeous beach on Lopez Island, I saw someone painting the view on the water’s edge. Sure enough, it was Tom, working outdoors and having a terrific time. “Gary, I’ve just discovered something very useful,”, he told me with a grin. “I don’t have to haul water to the beach for my painting – I can just use the sea water”. Later I found out from Tom that it wasn’t in fact good advice; the brushes he used with saltwater fell apart afterwards, their glue eroded by the salinity.
Gary Faigin
Founding Artistic Director, Gage Academy of Art
