“I think music has a bigger impact, from my point of view, more commercially than culturally. For example, jazz, blues, tango, classical, and regional music enthusiasts are immensely small compared to the consumers of today's popular music. Art enriches human beings; that's its main mission.”

Max Hoeffner: The Art of the Blues

You can almost hear the Blues, when you walk into one of his paintings

Being a universal genre, Blues has its peculiarities and variations in style and performance. Max (Maximiliano) Hoeffner can feel its depth and intensity like a true bluesman. As a connoisseur of the music, he has a profound understanding of what it means and what it represents. Something he translates beautifully, and rhythmically, into his art. In fact, we can almost hear the lyrics when we walk into one of Max’s paintings. Argentinian painter Max has mastered, like no other Latin American artist, the essence of the mother of all modern music through its different periods and the environments in which it developed. Rural or urban, secular or sanctified, the artist is able to carry the spectator, blues fan or not, through the different historical and social aspects of Afro-American culture. Hoeffner depicts an important part of the history of blues, one that stretches between the 1920s, time when Blues came into its own as a significant musical expression within the new national popular culture,  and the early sixties. The first recordings starred the great female classic blues singers, then came the country folk singers of the Mississippi Delta.

(Photo: Max Hoeffner, depicts an important part of the history of blues)

As large numbers of African Americans fled the south in search of better socio-economic conditions above the Mason-Dixon line, the blues traveled with them and became rooted in urban centers of the north such as Chicago. The more urban electric blues that developed, they eclipsed the rural blues of the 1930s and directly influenced both rock and roll and what would become known as rhythm and blues. Hoeffner describes the lives of the people, the artists and the great country bluesmen and women, some only privy to the true believers. As a conjuror of the Mississippi, he evokes this unique setting and brings together its sweet and sour colors for the purpose of an amazing and at times harsh harmony. With the folk revival of the 1950s/'60s, white audiences "rediscovered" and breathed new commercial life into the folk blues (and some of the remaining Delta bluesmen who had languished in obscurity since the 1930s) making it the cornerstone of the tremendously popular British and American blues rock of the next decade.

Interview by Michael Limnios / Artworks © by Max Hoeffer

How has the art and music influenced your views of the world? What moment changed your life the most?

In the case of music it happened naturally because my father, Guillermo, was the first serious blues collector of Argentine blues. I listened to blues and jazz since I was old enough to reason, obviously the collection in those years was of 78 rpm blues records (Blind Blake, Ramblin Thomas, Ma Rainey etc) some jazz (Jimmy Blythe, Johnny Dodds, Keppard etc) with the passing of the years it grew a lot, Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Little Walter, Lightnin Slim, Elmore James and many other contemporary blues musicians of those 50's, then at the end of those years the first LP's arrived (Folkways, Stinson, Elektra) ...many years passed; now I have 4000 long plays and more than 10,000 CDs, so following in my father's footsteps I dedicated a large part of my life to the Blues... My parents always bought me the best pencils, then tempera and oil paints, just when I started with oils (I was 12 years old) I began to copy the covers of Blues LPs, a theme that I never abandoned, although Hollywood cinema (Western, Black Police) and other different themes (biblical, Indian Malones, tango, gauchos, portraits) are also represented in my work. I am a self-taught painter and over the years I formed my own style, obviously inspiring myself and stealing from the great geniuses of painting that dazzled me the most.

“The music of the past is in my house. I listen to it every day; a little or a lot. I closely follow young blues musicians who are passionate about the blues; the two I consider the most talented are Jerron Paxton and Jontavius ​​Willis.” (Photos: © Max Hoeffner’s artworks)

How do you describe your artwork’s philosophy and mission? What is the driving force behind your continuous support for your art?

Painting becomes a necessity; often, one painting inspires the next, and when one turns out really good, the search begins to find another like it. Over the years, I think I've managed to paint some pretty good ones. That's the driving force behind my painting. The mission could be the legacy we artists leave behind with our work after we die. Regarding the question about what drives my art, I want to correct this by adding something common to all mortals: the driving force in life varies over time. In my case, to summarize, it would be, first, the strength and spirit of being young; in the middle of my life, the unconditional support of my second wife, Paula, with whom we abandoned everything, moving to the Tigre Delta for several years; and, third, the appearance of my grandson and close friend, Vicente. These were the events that served as the driving force of my life and my art.

Why do you think that the Blues music continues to generate such a devoted following in Argentina?

When in the 40's my father began to collect blues records, he unknowingly kicked things off. In the 60's we met Norberto Bettinelli, someone who was fully linked to the world of jazz internationally and locally. Through him, my father and I were able to obtain many new blues LPs and some jazz (black and from the 20's). Then, together with him in 1980, we opened the first jazz and blues record store in Argentina (it lasted a short time 80 & 83). At the same time, some rock musicians in Argentina introduced blues melodies and chords into their songs (mainly in the style of Chicago Blues from the 50's). This started in the 70's, basically; Pappo, Manal, Memphis la Bluesra, etc. For my part, since the 80's, I led all the groups of collectors and budding connoisseurs of the blues in Argentina. In 84, I contacted Johnny Parth (owner of the famous Document label) and from my father's and my collection we passed on to him via chrome cassette more than 40 unreleased blues titles until that moment for his Document LP series and others that he produced in those years (my name appears in the Document catalog as a contributing collector). From that group of collectors that I gathered at home appeared Adrian Flores, who created the first radio program (Blues Special) dedicated entirely to the blues and later the magazine (I was a radio and magazine columnist), later he brought in great bluesingers like Honeyboy Edwards, Jimmy Rogers, Eddie Kirland, Jimmy Dawkins and many more who performed in theaters and also at the Blues Special Club (owned by Flores). It was at that time that many people became educated about what the blues really was. Now with the arrival of the Internet and groups dedicated to the blues such as Real Blues Forum, Blues and Gospel Music and Blues Mafia, the blues is widely spread in Argentina and South America.

“The mission could be the legacy we artists leave behind with our work after we die. Regarding the question about what drives my art, I want to correct this by adding something common to all mortals: the driving force in life varies over time.” (Photos: © Max Hoeffner and his artworks)

What do you miss most nowadays from the music of the past? Why is it important to we preserve and spread the blues?

The music of the past is in my house. I listen to it every day; a little or a lot. I closely follow young blues musicians who are passionate about the blues; the two I consider the most talented are Jerron Paxton and Jontavius ​​Willis. Blues and gospel music is very well archived in discographies, mainly prewar and, in more detail, postwar. University collections and those of the Library of Congress are digitized, and I would say about 50% are freely accessible (I have more than 1,000 CDs with remastered material from those archives). It would be nice to hope they would release the other 50% so that researchers, scholars, and blues enthusiasts around the world could hear and classify this unexplored material, just as researchers who keep their undigitized material stored at home can edit it or donate it to universities or bookstores.

A separate case is the archives of unissued recordings that Smithsonian-Folkways keeps unedited and with access denied to the public from the collections of Mack McCormick, Frederic Ramsey, Harold Courlander, and Chris Strachwitz. They are the ones who should release this material, which is considerable and would serve to greatly disseminate the blues. Commercial blues in general is already available on YouTube, Spotify, and other platforms.

What is the impact of music and art on the socio-cultural implications?  How do you want the art to affect people?

I think music has a bigger impact, from my point of view, more commercially than culturally. For example, jazz, blues, tango, classical, and regional music enthusiasts are immensely small compared to the consumers of today's popular music. Art enriches human beings; that's its main mission.

“Thus, I collected several books, magazines, photos, and videos on the subject, many of which served as inspiration for my paintings. The message of my paintings is to recognize that my passion for the blues and African-American culture in the United States is completely genuine.” (Photo: © Max Hoeffner’s artwork. Max Hoeffner can feel its depth and intensity like a true bluesman. As a connoisseur of the music, he has a profound understanding of what it means and what it represents)

What are some of the most important lessons you have learned from your experiences in paths of art?

First, paint without being influenced by certain dealers or supposed buyers. The work decays and loses the spirit of the creative imprint. The best paintings don't always sell; it's important to be lucky enough to find the right dealer and gallery to market each painter's work, because artists choose this profession and we have to make a living from it.

What touched you from the Afro-American culture and life? Is there a message you are trying to convey with your art? 

Since the passion that African-American blues, gospel, and jazz music awakened in my father and me, it was a natural development for us to develop an interest in discovering and researching African-American culture, especially during the early years of the blues movement, I believe between 1890 and 1930, although our interest continued for several decades afterward. Thus, I collected several books, magazines, photos, and videos on the subject, many of which served as inspiration for my paintings. The message of my paintings is to recognize that my passion for the blues and African-American culture in the United States is completely genuine.

Let’s take a trip with a time machine, so where and why would you really want to go for a whole day?

In a time travel for a day, I would like to resurrect after 20 years, to be able to see how my son, my grandchildren, my young friends, my widow (if she is still alive) are, where my records are, what happened to my paintings - are they worth more or less than before?

(Photos: © Max Hoeffner and his artworks)