The colors of olives, moss, dry reeds, pillowy clouds, brown earth, slack water, dusty sunsets and dark amber fields are also colors of Healdsburg, where they are prominently displayed in the paintings of artist Wade Hoefer in local galleries, restaurants, private residences and hotel lobbies. His distinctive large canvases are people-less landscapes that are an unmistakable part of Healdsburg’s aesthetics, a wine country palette of his own dominion now shared in perpetuity with his adopted hometown. Hoefer died just over a week ago on Aug. 11 at a local hospital. He was 72.
His last year was ravaged by the Kincade wildfire in 2019, which destroyed his studio and living quarters in Alexander Valley, and by a series of chronic ailments that finally wore him down as he fought to keep his artists’ brush in motion and some final empty canvasses completed. He leaves behind a trove of work in his family’s possession, in gallery vaults and in private collections up and down California and beyond.
Wade Douglas Hoefer was born on March 15, 1948 in Long Beach, California. He soon moved to northern California and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the California College of Art and Craft in Oakland in 1972. He arrived in Healdsburg soon thereafter and worked in landscape architecture and as a vineyard manager for Clos du Bois winery.
Hoefer married his second wife, Olive Myra, in 1980 and the couple raised a small family and made big impressions all around Healdsburg with their art and design talents as they shared a joy for the “good life” of friends, wine, countryside and conversations. Myra Hoefer Design was founded by Myra in 1990. She was a self-taught interior and floral designer and created high-end interiors for clients in Paris, France, and California. She died in 2015.
“Myra and Wade brought a real and personal aesthetic to Healdsburg,” said Sandy Erickson, owner of Erickson Fine Art Gallery in downtown Healdsburg. Erickson has displayed and sold Wade’s paintings for many years and some canvases still hang in her gallery. “I admired his work tremendously. We had a very professional relationship. He always came through for me,” she said, mentioning commissioned assignments and projects she sometimes arranged for him with her clients.
While he liked the “cocktail scene,” said Erickson, Hoefer also shied away from the limelight. He was considered an influential figure in Western landscape painting. He once said, “The landscape is what I know; it’s the only thing I’m sure of. Remove the landscape tradition from painting and you’re left with a sense of loss. My work is made by hand. We’re only human, and we want confirmation of that.”
Hoefer partnered with local photographer John Youngblood who photographed his work for gallery previews, portfolios and other uses.
“It was great working with him,” said Youngblood. “I have very strong memories of him, and he was a really sweet guy. He was a storyteller to beat the band.”
Many of his works included dimming light reflected on a foreground of a ribbon of water, a flat meadow, a wetland or a forest. He said he worked with large canvases because he wanted viewers to have a “physical experience” with his art rather than an intellectual one. Besides landscapes, Hoefer painted whimsical, rustic abstracts of imagined objects and geospheres.
His daughter, Jessica Hoefer-Land, now living in Portland, Oregon, said her father’s work “proved his love for the area (Healdsburg) in which he lived. He loved spending time in his garden because of the peaceful meditative quality it held for him,” she said.
There was a little-known side of Hoefer about his passion for horseback riding and western roping. He told his family that he took long horseback rides for inspiration for his paintings. He also was fluent in five languages.
Besides his daughter, Hoefer is survived by son Zane Hoefer, step-daughters Lisa North (Roger) and Gina Gattuso (Phil) and grandchildren Jaimey, William, Wyatt, Madeline, Alex and Clay.
Hoefer is also survived by his 100-year-old mother, Josephina D’Agostino Hoefer, sister Nancy Hoefer-Orr and brother, Keith Hoefer (Robin).
In recent times, Hoefer was living on the Soda Rock Winery property in Alexander Valley where he also had a studio. He did some paintings for winery owners Ken and Diane Wilson and they shared his work with the public in their tasting room. The winery, Hoefer’s belongings and studio materials were all destroyed in the October 2019 Kincade Fire. Hoefer lost at least 20 paintings and a large half-finished commission he was doing.
Kim Eagles-Smith arranged an “After The Fire” benefit auction of Hoefer’s paintings at his Mill Valley gallery to help Hoefer get back on his feet and replenish his artist materials. Hoefer’s work will now be “frozen” in the family and various gallery ownerships while his estate is settled and final homes for his art are found.
