Frank B. Hoffman was a prolific illustrator of popular short fiction during the 1920s and 1930s. His authentic portrayals of Western themes in such periodicals as the Ladies' Home Journal, the Saturday Evening Post, and Country Gentleman won him a national reputation. From 1940 to his death in 1958 he painted Western and outdoor subjects exclusively for the Brown and Bigelow Calendar Company.

Frank B. Hoffman was born in Chicago on 28 August 1888. As a boy he showed little interest in school, being more inclined to spend time drawing animals than in study. After Hoffman took two years to finish the fourth grade, his father sent him to some racing stables the family owned in Ohio. According to the unpublished biography by his wife, Hazel, Hoffman later said that he had been glad to go because he believed he could "see more of the world from the middle of a horse's...