During the post-war years
Hocks was assistant director of the San Diego
School of Arts and Crafts, a private art school in La Jolla, and
was
instrumental in keeping affordable artist's studios in Spanish Village.
Along with modern architect Lloyd Ruocco, Hocks co-founded the dynamic
Allied Artists Council with Belle Baranceanu, Everett Gee Jackson,
Dan
Dickey and John Olson.
The well-travelled Hocks
exhibited in San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles,
Long Beach, Pasadena, Paris, Mallorca and Guadalajara, had several
one-person shows at the Art Center La Jolla/La Jolla Museum of Art
and the Fine Arts Gallery (SDMA). The San Diego Museum of Art held
a major retrospective of his work in 1976, just a few years before
his death. He brought a continental element to the local art scene
and is described in Bruce Kamerling's 100 Years of Art in San Diego
as "one of the most adventurous local artists...an intelligent
and articulate defender of modern tendencies in art." Local
arts and architecture writer James Britton called Fred Hocks "the
dean of the San Diego moderns."
