Born in Philadelphia, Albert Hoffman (1915 – 1993) had a formal education that extended to the 8th grade, when it was cut short by the pressures of the Great Depression. He joined the Navy just after the attack on Pearl Harbor and was wounded in action. After the war he returned east to Atlantic City, settling in nearby Absecon where he went into the junk business. Shortly thereafter, Hoffman began to spend increasing amounts of his time carving simple reliefs