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Morris Henry Hobbs
Morris Henry Hobbs (January 1, 1892 – January 24, 1967) was an American printmaker and painter. He was born in Rockford, Illinois, and grew up in Chicago.

Hobbs studied briefly at the Chicago Art Institute but left home at age 17 to make his living as an architectural draftsman. Largely self-educated, he read widely all his life, traveled where he could, and learned his craft by studying with other artists.

From 1918 to 1919, during World War I, Hobbs served as an Army engineer in Brest, France. While there, he contracted the Spanish flu (during the worldwide pandemic) and as a result, permanently lost his hearing. After the War, he left the Army, married Jewel Clark, and moved to Toledo to work at an architectural firm. The couple had two children – Bette and Dorothy.

In 1926, artist J. Ernest Dean of Toledo taught Hobbs how to make an etching, and Hobbs exhibited his first work in 1927. Moving back to Chicago that year, he took a new position at an architectural firm and also shared rented space with artist Charles Rosenthal in the Tree Studios building, at 4 East Ohio Street.

Hobbs spent the summer of 1930 in France, studying with Chester C. Hayes and other artists. He had earned a distinguished reputation as an etcher by the early 1930s, exhibiting and selling his work from coast to coast along with other prominent artists including John Taylor Arms, Thomas Hart Benton, Gustaf Dalstrom, Gordon Grant, Edward T. Hurley, Bertha Jaques, Rockwell Kent, Alessandro Mastro-Valerio, Reinhold H. Palenske, Roi Partridge, and Leon Pescheret.

Jewel and Morris Henry Hobbs were divorced in the late 1930s.

Hobbs moved to New Orleans in 1939 and quickly established himself in the city’s art community. He married Alice Seddon Hobbs in 1942, and the couple had one son, William J. Hobbs.

Hobbs created several bodies of work, including scenes of Chicago, the Midwest landscape, and France, as well as nudes. He invented the miniature Permo Press for making his tiny “Postage Stamp” prints. He is perhaps best known for his later etchings of the New Orleans French Quarter and Taxco, Mexico, and for his watercolors of tropical birds and bromeliads.

Morris and Alice Hobbs were offered fellowships at the MacDowell Colony, in Peterborough, New Hampshire, for the summers of 1944 and 1945.

After a long and distinguished career, Morris Henry Hobbs died in New Orleans in 1967, at age 75.

Major Solo Exhibitions
1936	Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 1939	Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 1942	Art Center of La Jolla, California 1946	Delgado Museum of Art (now the New Orleans Museum of Art) 1963	Gallery of Fine Arts (Hilliard Art Museum), University of Louisiana, Lafayette 1966	Museum of Fine Arts, Houston 1967	Reinike Gallery, New Orleans 1976	The Historic New Orleans Collection 1983	St. Tammany Art Association, Covington, Louisiana 1986	Louisiana State Museum, New Orleans

Selected Group Shows
Art Institute of Chicago Toledo Museum of Art Los Angeles Museum Carnegie Institute Corcoran Gallery of Art Library of Congress New Orleans Museum of Art Louisiana State University Museum of Art

Museums and Library Collections
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia Carnegie Museum of Art Fine Art Museums of San Francisco ~ Achenbach Collection Georgetown University Library ~ Special Collections The Historic New Orleans Collection Library of Congress Louisiana State Museum Mills College Art Museum National Gallery of Art National Museum of American History New Orleans Museum of Art Ogden Museum of Southern Art Philadelphia Museum of Art Smith College Museum of Art Smithsonian American Art Museum The Toledo Museum of Art Tulane University - Latin American Library Newcomb Art Museum, Tulane University University of Louisiana at Lafayette

The Papers of Morris Henry Hobbs
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC

Studio Addresses
1938-39 - Tree Studios, 4 East Ohio Street, Chicago 1938 - 740 Royal Street, New Orleans 1939 - 629 St. Ann Street, New Orleans, and Madame John’s Legacy, 632 Dumaine Street, New Orleans 1939-67	- New Orleans Art League, 628 Toulouse Street 1944-45 (Summers) - Adams and Alexander Studios, MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, N.H.

Organizational Memberships
Arts and Crafts Club of New Orleans California Society of Etchers Chicago Society of Etchers Cleveland Printmakers Illinois Society of Fine Arts Louisiana Society of Etchers – founding president Miniature Print Society, Cedar Rapids, Iowa National Arts Club, New York New Orleans Art League – president Northwest Printmakers Southern Printmakers Society Southern States Art League Toledo Tile Club

Bromeliad Associations
Hobbs was a prominent collector and cultivator of the tropical plants known as bromeliads (bromeliaceae). He was a member of the Greater New Orleans Bromeliad Society, the Louisiana Bromeliad Society (founding president), and the National Bromeliad Society (board of directors). The bromeliad hybrid cultivar Aechmea Morris Henry Hobbs (a.k.a. Aechmea Bill Hobbs) was named for him during his lifetime and an annual bromeliad prize is still awarded in his name.