Belle Hoffman was born in 1889 in Garretsville, Ohio. In 1914, she started her career as a dress designer at a commercial illustrating firm where she earned experience and $1 a week. She attended the Cleveland School of Art, the NY Arts Student League and was a member of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. She studied with Henry Snell in Gloucester and Charles W. Hawthorne in Provincetown.

In 1912, Belle Hoffman and 20 other young women met in her studio and founded the Women's Art Club of Cleveland.

In 1918, she spent her summer painting in Gloucester. She exhibited her fresh and bright group of 30 paintings at The Gage Gallery. Her studio was located in the Gage Gallery in Cleveland, Ohio where she was known to display a sincere desire to do extraordinary work.

She exhibited at the Cleveland Museum of Art numerous times and was awarded in 1923 the Certificate of Merit. She also exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1929. In 1944, she exhibited her work at the Composers and Authors Association of America.

Belle Hoffman traveled to Italy and France where she produced paintings that were

alive with color. She spent time in Capri where she painted bright oils in the atmosphere of red rocks, deep blue Mediterranean water and white buildings in the gleaming Italian sun. She exhibited this group of paintings in 1927 at the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors and also at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

She also had an exhibition of portrait drawings at the Eastman-Bolton Galleries in New York where she had a great deal of success.

A retrospective show was held at the Women's City Club in 1961 of Belle Hoffman's

paintings. She was noted as one of the most capable Cleveland fashion artists, but more importantly for her fine art of scenes of her travels in her post-impressionistic style.

She lived her life as one of Cleveland's outstanding artists and frequent Museum art- show winners.