Malvina Cornell Hoffman (June 15, 1885 – July 10, 1966)[a] was an American sculptor and author, well known for her life-size bronze sculptures of people.

[1][6] Her sculpture series of culturally diverse people, entitled Hall of the Races of Mankind, was a popular permanent exhibition at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.

[8] She was commissioned to execute commemorative monuments and was awarded many prizes and honors, including a membership to the National Sculpture Society.

She maintained a salon, a social gathering of artistic and personal acquaintances, at her Sniffen Court studio for many years.

[8] Hoffman published a definitive work on historical and technical aspects of bronze casting, Sculpture Inside and Out, in 1939.

[1] Hoffman developed her skill as an artist during her studies with George Grey Barnard, Herbert Adams, and Gutzon Borglum.

[3] Hoffman gravitated towards sculpture due to the artistic freedom she felt when creating a three-dimensional work of art.

[1] In 1912,[17] Hoffman, with her friend and fellow artist, the suffragist Ida Sedwick Proper,[18] staged an independent exhibition of their own work.

[19] Hoffman became famous internationally for her sculptures of ballet dancers, such as Vaslav Nijinsky and Anna Pavlova, who often posed for her.

In 1917, a version of it won the National Academy's Julia A. Shaw Memorial Prize and the next year a large casting of the sculpture was on display in Paris at the Luxembourg Gardens.

His eyes were deep sunk in their sockets ... Only his firm mouth and his powerful chin showed no trace of the inhuman punishment which his body and soul had received during half a decade of life in the trenches.

[20] She also created the well known poster Serbia needs your help, based on the Miloje P. Igrutinović's photo of dead Serbian soldiers who had died of hunger and exhaustion on the Greek island of Vido.

[26] The poster Serbia needs your help later circulated around the United States, including the library of a local politician in Phoenix, Arizona, or in the Navajo reservation.

[8] During the war, she met the American Red Cross worker John W. Frothingham and his Serbian wife Jelena Lozanić.

As member of the American Red Cross, she and Lozanić continued to organize the relief for Serbia (now amalgamated into Yugoslavia) during the Interbellum, regularly giving lectures on orphaned Serbian children.

In 1919, at the request of Herbert Hoover, director of American Relief Administration, Hoffman travelled to Serbia and Yugoslavia to visit US humanitarian missions throughout the state.

That same year she visited the site of the 1389 Battle of Kosovo, as the second recorded American to do so, after John W. Frotingham (some even claim the second foreign visitor in general).

It is a memorial to the late Ambassador of France, Robert Bacon, and alumni of Harvard University who lost their lives during the war.

[15] Her counter-proposal was accepted, and she was commissioned by the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois to create anthropologically accurate sculptures of peoples of diverse nationalities and races.

[15] She then traveled around the world — including distant places like Africa, India, and Bali — in 1931 to 1932, creating busts and figures of people[9] and taking more than 2,000 photographs.

According to American Historical Review, "the sculptures in the 'Races of Mankind' had perpetuated an older typological approach by presenting 'race' in the form of literally static bronze figures depicting idealized racial 'types'".

Jointly with the mayor of New York City, Fiorello La Guardia, she participated in the fund raising events of organized by Jelena Lozanić, and in sending of the relief to the occupied territory.

Hoffman made portrait sculptures, including those of John Muir, Wendell Willkie,[8] Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Henry Clay Frick, and Ivan Meštrović.

[37][39] Her awards for public service include the French Legion of Honour and the Royal Order of St. Sava III of Yugoslavia.

[50][51] Hoffman befriended painter Romaine Brooks, writer Gertrude Stein, and ballet dancer Anna Pavlova.