31 Facts About Gerard Hoffnung

Gerard Hoffnung was an artist and musician, best known for his humorous works.

Gerard Hoffnung published a series of cartoons on musical themes, and illustrated the works of novelists and poets.

In 1956 Gerard Hoffnung mounted the first of his "Gerard Hoffnung Festivals" in London, at which classical music was spoofed for comic effect, with contributions from many eminent musicians.

Gerard Hoffnung was sent to England, where he attended Bunce Court School in 1938.

Gerard went with his mother to London, where she rented a house in Hampstead Garden Suburb, where Hoffnung lived for the rest of his life.

Gerard Hoffnung had his first cartoon published in the same publication while he was still at school.

Gerard Hoffnung then attended Harrow School of Art, after which he became a schoolmaster.

Gerard Hoffnung was art master at Stamford School and assistant art master at Harrow School, with an intervening and overlapping spell as a staff artist on the London Evening News.

Gerard Hoffnung was a staff artist to Cowles Magazines Inc in New York in 1950, and otherwise pursued a career as a freelance cartoonist.

Gerard Hoffnung contributed to Punch, The Strand Magazine and The Tatler, and to other British, continental, and American magazines.

Gerard Hoffnung produced advertising work for Kia-Ora, Guinness, and other companies.

Gerard Hoffnung presented one-man exhibitions of his work, including one at the Little Gallery, Piccadilly, and two at the Royal Festival Hall.

Gerard Hoffnung mainly drew with a mapping pen and Indian ink, and used watercolours and wax crayons.

Much of Gerard Hoffnung's humour centred on the world of music, particularly the various instruments of the orchestra with which he was fascinated.

Gerard Hoffnung published a series of books of cartoons poking gentle fun at conductors and orchestral instrumentalists.

Gerard Hoffnung depicted Malcolm Sargent as "Elegantemente", conducting with a full-length mirror at the front of his rostrum.

In 1950 Gerard Hoffnung began a career as a broadcaster for the BBC, as both raconteur and regular contestant in panel games including One Minute Please, the predecessor of Just a Minute.

Gerard Hoffnung was, in the words of Ingrams, "a brilliant improviser with a dry wit and a masterly sense of timing".

Probably the best-known example of Gerard Hoffnung as a humorous speaker is an account of a bricklayer's misfortunes when lowering some bricks in a barrel from the top of a building.

Gerard Hoffnung first saw the story in The Manchester Guardian in 1957; the version printed there is identical with the text used by Gerard Hoffnung, except for the location, which he changed from Barbados to Golders Green.

Gerard Hoffnung used the piece to warm up the audience before each recording session of One Minute, Please.

In 1956 Gerard Hoffnung took part in one of the popular "April Fool's" concerts in Liverpool, organised by Fritz Spiegl.

Gerard Hoffnung learned to play the tuba well enough to play the solo part in the Tuba Concerto by Vaughan Williams in a serious concert at the Festival Hall, and was an active participant in Morley College Orchestra, a respected amateur ensemble in London.

Gerard Hoffnung played in the premiere of Malcolm Arnold's Toy Symphony at the Savoy Hotel on 28 November 1957.

In 1952 Gerard Hoffnung married Annetta Perceval, nee Bennett; they had two children, Ben and Emily who became, respectively, a timpanist and a sculptor.

Gerard Hoffnung's uncle was Bruno Adler, a German art historian and writer who, during the war, wrote for the German language department of the BBC.

Gerard Hoffnung joined the Quakers in 1955 and was active in their prisoner visiting scheme.

Gerard Hoffnung collapsed at his home on 25 September 1959, and died of a cerebral haemorrhage three days later in New End Hospital in Hampstead at the age of thirty-four.

Gerard Hoffnung was among other things an artist, a musician, a linguist, a raconteur, a Quaker, a bon viveur, a prison visitor and a mime.

Posthumous exhibitions of Gerard Hoffnung's work include those at the Berlin Festival ; the Brighton and Edinburgh festivals ; the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York ; the Royal Festival Hall ; and Orleans House Gallery, Twickenham, London.

In 1996 Humphrey Lyttelton recorded a portrait of Gerard Hoffnung entitled Gerard Hoffnung At Large for BBC Audiobooks, written by Judith Liddell-King.