Walter Martin Baumhofer (November 1, 1904 – September 23, 1987) was an American illustrator notable for his cover paintings seen on the pulp magazines of Street & Smith and other publishers.

He was born and grew up in Brooklyn where his father had become a clerk at a local coffee company and then, in 1918, janitor at an apartment building, a situation which enabled the family to live rent free.

[1] On June 28, 1935, he married to the equally accomplished illustration artist Alureda Leach Baumhofer (b Aug. 20, 1903; d. 1992), nicknamed Rita or Pete.

Retiring from freelance magazine illustration, he created portraits, landscapes and Western scenes for fine art galleries.

[1] With the decline of pulps and reader's magazines in the late 1950s and early 1960s, due to the rise of the TV as evening entertainment, Baumhofer's illustrations lost its markets.