Ferdinand Hocks was known as an oil painter and printmaker whose work became more abstract later in his career. He was an active member of the art community in California as an artist and a teacher for many years.

Hocks was born in Aachen, Germany in 1886, and came to the United States to join his brother in San Francisco, California in 1902. His brother was established in business, and Ferdinand attended the Mark Hopkins Art Institute where he was a pupil of Arthur Matthews. After the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, Hocks traveled to New York City to take classes at the Art Students League. He had moved back to California by 1919 where he lived in Los Angeles and furthered his studies at the Art Institute there.

In the 1920s he was given the position of director of the summer school at the Los Angeles Art Institute. Hocks purchased many acres of land in the Sweetwater Valley in the 1940s, where he had a studio-home. He exhibited at the San Diego Fine Art Gallery in 1938 and 1942. In his later years he was in charge of the San Diego School of Fine Arts & Crafts and from the 1950s to the 1970s taught at the Coronado School of Fine Arts.

He died in San Diego in 1981. A retrospective of his work was shown at the San Diego Museum of Art in 1976.