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Susan Talbot Hoffmann was born on March
14, 1955, in Thibodaux, Louisiana, the daughter of a Texaco oil field
worker and a mother who loved to cook. She was one of four Cajun children
born to Joycelyn and John Talbot. Susan loved to sketch the living things
around her including her dogs and cats and the children she baby-sat.
She attended St. Genevieve Catholic and Thibodaux High schools. She
entered Nicholls State University under the High Ability Student Program
at the age of 16. She illustrated her parasitology lab manual with organisms
she viewed under the microscope. That manual was handed down from student
to student. She enrolled as a Chemistry major and graduated magna cum
laude in 1976.
Following graduation, she worked as a
Research Assistant for Tulane Medical Center and was accepted into the
Clinical Chemistry Program in the Pathology Department of Louisiana
State University Medical Center in New Orleans. She would often draw
comical figures to illustrate the ideas discussed at classes and seminars
she attended. She graduated with a M.S. in Clinical Chemistry in 1979.
As a graduate student she was a member of the research team of Dr. Andrew
Schally who received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1979. She graduated
with a Ph.D. in Clinical Chemistry in 1981. Susan received a National
Research Award and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institutes
of Health in Bethesda Maryland from 1982 -1986.
Returning to work at the U.S.-Japan Biomedical
Research Laboratories of Tulane Medical Center in New Orleans in 1986
as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine, she was one
of four investigators on a grant to isolate new hormones regulating
ovulation. She traveled to Kyoto, Japan to present her research results
and took many slides of the gardens there to illustrate her seminars.
She would often assist the Japanese fellow's wives in their Ikebana
floral arrangements at the laboratory.
In 1989 she was diagnosed with a large
acoustic neuroma requiring emergency brain surgery. The difficult surgery
took ten hours. She suffered an epidural hematoma as well as a stroke
which required an additional four hours surgery. Susan remained in a
deep coma, slowly awakening over the following month. Unable to speak,
talk, walk or eat, she remained on Touro Infirmary's Head Injury Rehabilitation
Ward for several months and in Speech and Physical Therapy for three
years. (www.tbirecovery.org)
Following her rehabilitation, she began taking art
classes at Nicholls State University as therapy. Loving the art course
work, she accumulated the credits necessary to receive a B.A. in Art
during the ensuing six years, graduating in May of 1999. Susan has had
work accepted into local juried art shows in the areas of drawing, painting,
design, sculpture and printmaking. She received a first place award
for her prints of the Kyoto gardens and for her print of the Star Jasmine
and the Fern leaf. She received statewide recognition being mentioned
in the spring 2000 issue of Louisiana Life and acceptance of her print
of the Magnolia into the Louisiana Archives in Baton Rouge. In April
2001, she had her prints of the Gardenia and Leather-leaf Fern accepted
into the national exhibition "Works on Paper 2001" in Houston,
Texas. Her chine' colle aquatint print of the "Louisiana Magnolia"
was featured in the New Orleans Art Association's 22nd National Juried
Art Show. In August 2002, she had a showing at the Art Student's League
of New York during the Society of American Graphic Artists' 69th National
Exhibition at the Grand Gallery. She was elected to membership in the
American Color Print Society after receiving an award in their National
Exhibition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her artist's book, "Water
My Flowers" was featured in the 1st Annual National Book Arts Show
held by Bright Hill Press in Treadwell, New York. In 2003, her print
of the Garden District in New Orleans was accepted into the 16th Parkside
National Small Print Exhibition in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and her collection
of prints titled "Southern Splendor:
the Garden District of New Orleans" was catalogued into the
Historic New Orleans Collection in 2004. Later, her artist book on the
Louisiana swamps was featured
in Queensland, Australia, and in an International Exhibition at the
San Diego Art Institute Museum of the Living Artist.
She has been influenced by other artists
who fought mental and physical illnesses and turned to nature for inspiration
such as Auguste Renoir, Vincent Van Gogh, Georgia O'Keeffe and Charles
Demuth. Each year since her recuperation
in 1993, she has had a favorite flower painting made into a card which
she sends to her friends at Christmas time in celebration. Her senior
show titled "Louisiana Rain" included a poem she had written
ending with "Life lives and renews itself...and so do I."
Her solo show in 2002, included watercolors of locally grown fruits
and vegetables and also included an original poem ending with "A
rising mist - to heaven born."
In 2004, a retrospective of her past five years since
her graduation was exhibited at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux,
Louisiana. Ending the year, she received the Dorothy and Hugh Hutton
Award in Intaglio from the American Color Print Society in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.
Her website SusanTalbotHoffmann.com was
launched the following year, 2005, and offers reproductions and notecards
of her etchings and watercolors as well as limited edition prints. In
2006, she debuted at the National
Arts Club in New York and received the Jeanne
Claire Memorial Award for her etching of "Crawfish
Boil Katrina" in Philadelphia given by the American Color Print
Society. She also had watercolor paintings of her native Louisiana Iris,
done on location in Schriever, accepted into the permanent collection
of Thibodaux Regional Medical Center and other "native flowers" in Lafayette
General Hospital. Her chine' colle etchings of "native flowers" are
at Lafayette City Club as well as soft ground etchings of actual magnolia
leaves and flowers at Pilant Court Reporting in Morgan City, Louisiana.
Susan's most recent work in watercolor using antique roses growing around her home and etchings of famous Louisiana cuisine describing the plight of today's Louisianian was shown at Southdown Plantation in Houma, Louisiana at the end of 2007 and Acadiana Center for the Arts in Lafayette, Louisiana in May-June 2007. This work was also shown at the Masur Museum in Monroe, Louisiana in March-April 2008.
Her etching ttitled “Louisiana Cypress Swamp II” was selected among the Top Ten finalists in an international online competition “Curate This” in which artists around the globe were voted upon by a worldwide audience including museum curators and art collectors. The Top Ten were included in an exhibition by BECA Gallery of New Orleans.
At the end of 2008, Susan Talbot Hoffmann had the distinction of being one of the first artists to be invited to enjoy representation in one of New Orleans, Louisiana's newest galleries “A Work of Art” on Magazine Street. That gallery has since closed. Etching the historic home of Beauvoir, she was the featured artist during December 2009 - February 2010.
She has continued showing at “Art under the Oaks” at E. D. White plantation, and Jubilee: “A Celebration of the Art and Humanities” held locally during April and also Art after Dark held in Houma since their inception. She also continues showing her latest watercolors with the Louisiana Watercolor Society at the Louisiana State Archives in Baton Rouge during the spring.
As a member of the American Color Print Society, she shows her current etchings in the National Members’ Exhibition held in Philadelphia annually. Her most recent New Orleans Garden District etchings (website link) of historic homes were accepted at the Louisiana State University Art Gallery in Baton Rouge and she was also shown at the Southern Open held at the Acadiana Center for the Arts in Lafayette, Louisiana in 2009.
More etchings from the Louisiana series, “Life Prevails” and “Fear No Evil” are in the collection currently being shown at the MRC Forsyth Galleries at Texas A & M University. An additional etching, “Louisiana Crab Boil” has shown at the National Arts Club in New York in early 2012. Previously, in 2010, these etchings were shown at the Art Melt at Louisiana State Museum in Baton Rouge. She also showed her etchings at the Art Melt 2011, 2009 and 2006 shows.
Also to be shown there in October 2012 is a hand colored embossed etching “Colonel Robert Henry Short’s Italianate Villa” from the New Orleans garden district.
In 2012, following her third acceptance into the Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club based in New York, she has been elected to membership and may show her current etchings in New York annually.
Her goal as an artist is not only therapy for herself, but also to provide the viewer with scenes of nature in all her glory.
Susan Talbot Hoffmann began taking art classes at Nicholls State University, in Thibodaux, as therapy following treatment for a brain tumor. Loving the art course work, she accumulated the credits necessary to receive a B.A. in Art during the ensuing six years, graduating in May of 1999. Susan has since had work accepted into local, state, national and international juried art shows in the areas of drawing, painting, design, sculpture and especially printmaking, receiving awards for the Kyoto gardens she studied earlier in her science-based career.
She has since represented Louisiana with her etchings of cypress swamps, crab boils and plantation homes in many professionally juried shows including her etching of “Afton Villa”, in San Diego (California ’s Museum of the Living Artist) in 2004 and her etching of “Crawfish Boil: Katrina” in New York (New York ’s National Arts Club) in 2006. On both occasions she received regional press coverage. For her etchings of plantation homes, she received national attention in the monthly magazine Preservation in Print, a publication of the Louisiana Historic Preservation Office.
Later in 2006, Susan was awarded the Jeanne Claire Memorial Award in Etching and in 2004 the Dorothy and Hugh Hutton Award in Intaglio given by the American Color Print Society, an honorary organization formed of printmakers worldwide based in Philadelphia. The Awards received are a nationwide honor for etchers and other printmakers. Elected to membership in the American Color Print Society in 2001, she is the only woman from Louisiana ever to achieve this honor.
Becoming a member of the American Print Alliance in 2000, she has been selected for the “Aphrodite ’s Tears” etching accepted in the 2003 - 2006 exhibit “Theater of the Mind” and part of the etchings of “Lost Land of Evangeline” accepted into the 2007 - 2010 exhibit “Soapbox Prints for a Cleaner Environment” touring nationwide.
She is catalogued as part of the New Orleans Historic Collection for her suite of etchings titled “Southern Splendor: the Garden District” of Louisiana presented in Mobile, Alabama. Her suite of prints titled “Living Watermarks: Louisiana ’s Cypress Swamps” was presented in Queensland, Australia to high praise. Four years later, her watercolors of locally grown vegetables and fruits (painted on location in her father ’s vegetable garden accompanied by her mother ’s recipes for them) are represented by the watercolors “Persimmon”, “Corn and “Satsumas”. Locally, her show featuring these watercolors was publicized by the Louisiana Waterlife Museum.
In 2004, a retrospective of her past five years since her graduation was exhibited at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Louisiana. Susan has since served as the chairperson for the Art exhibit presented at the women’s Leadership Conference held in Thibodaux at Nicholls State University in the fall of 2006.
Her website SusanTalbotHoffmann.com was launched the following year, 2005, and offers reproductions and notecards of her etchings and watercolors as well as limited edition prints. In 2006, she debuted at the National Arts Club in New York. She also had watercolor paintings of her native Louisiana Iris, done on location in Schriever, accepted into the permanent collection of Thibodaux Regional Medical Center and other "native flowers" in Lafayette General Hospital. Her chine' colle etchings of "native flowers" are at Lafayette City Club as well as soft ground etchings of actual magnolia leaves and flowers at Pilant Court Reporting in Morgan City, Louisiana. Susan's most recent work in watercolor using antique roses growing around her home and etchings of famous Louisiana cuisine describing the plight of today's Louisianain was shown at Southdown Plantation in Houma, Louisiana at the end of 2007 and Acadiana Center for the Arts in Lafayette, Louisiana in May-June 2007. This work was also shown at the Masur Museum in Monroe, Louisiana in March-April 2008.
Her etching titled “Louisiana Cypress Swamp” was selected among the Top Ten finalists in an international online competition “Curate this” in which artists around the globe were voted upon by a worldwide audience including museum curators and art collectors. The Top Ten were included in an exhibition by BECA Gallery of New Orleans. Etching the historic home of Beauvoir, she was the featured artist during December 2009 - February 2010.
She has continued showing at “Art under the Oaks” at E. D. White plantation, and Jubilee: “A Celebration of the Art and Humanities” held locally during April and also Art after Dark held in
Houma since their inception. She also continues showing her latest watercolors with the Louisiana Watercolor Society at the Louisiana State Archives in Baton Rouge during the spring. As a member of the American Color Print Society, she shows her current etchings in the National Members ’ Exhibition held in Philadelphia annually. Her most recent New Orleans Garden District etchings of historic homes were accepted at the Louisiana State University Art Gallery in Baton Rouge and she was also shown at the Southern Open held at the Acadiana Center for the Arts in Lafayette, Louisiana in 2009.
In 2012, following her third acceptance into the Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club (CLWAC) based in New York, she has been elected to membership and may show her current etchings in New York annually.
In 2013 she was chosen to have a video/documentary film made about her art and life by Andrea Dupre. It was funded by a grant to Art of the Bayou and appears on Susan ’s website:
www.SusanTalbotHoffnann.com.
From 2014 until the present she has participated as an artist member in invitational spring and
fall shows in New York given by the Catherine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club and in Philadelphia given by the American Color Print Society. At the CLWAC member show, in 2016, she was awarded First Place in Graphics and Mixed Media for her etching of Louisiana Land Loss Pra-yer-lines and in the Annual Juried Exhibition held during the Fall of 2017 the Salmagundi Club Award for her etching of the New Orleans Garden District Louisiana Purchase Apartments.
She was nominated for the Southern Prize in 2017, an honor encompassing the Southeast region of the USA.. In April 2018, she was awarded a statuette (Flying High) as one of 60 global artists honored in a ceremony at New York ’s Academy of Art and Design. As an artist member of Curate4peace, she exhibited with 148 other countries and it was attended by members of the United Nations.
From November 2 to December 22 2018, she will participate in an International Environmental Exhibition in New York City as a member of Artists for a Greener Planet, a global invitational comprising 205 countries.
Susan took the Anna Hyatt Huntington Bronze Medal in 2019 in New York for her etching of the Degas House in the New Orleans Garden District at the Annual Exhibition of the CLWAC. In 2020 she was awarded the Dorothy Barberis Memorial Award in Printmaking for her etching of her home in Thibodaux Louisiana.
For this ASCP show, her entry is also in the New Orleans Garden District located at Prytania Street. This is the French Consulate. Hence the commemorative embossing in the lower corner of Fleur de lis.
...both his eternal power and his divine
nature, have been clearly seen;
they are perceived in the things that God has made.
Romans 1: 20 |
