William Hogarth

Lore & Background

William Hogarth was born at Bartholomew Close in London to Richard Hogarth, a poor Latin school teacher and textbook writer, and Anne Gibbons. In his youth he was apprenticed to the engraver Ellis Gamble in Leicester Fields, where he learned to engrave trade cards and similar products. Young Hogarth also took a lively interest in the street life of the metropolis and the London fairs, and amused himself by sketching the characters he saw. Around the same time, his father, who had opened an unsuccessful Latin-speaking coffee house at St John's Gate, was imprisoned for debt in the Fleet Prison for five years. Hogarth never spoke of his father's imprisonment. In 1720, Hogarth enrolled at the original St Martin's Lane Academy in Peter Court, London, which was run by Louis Chéron and John Vanderbank. He attended alongside other future leading figures in art and design, such as Joseph Highmore, William Kent, and Arthur Pond. The academy seems to have stopped operating in 1724, at around the same time that Vanderbank fled to France in order to avoid creditors. Hogarth then enrolled in another drawing school, in Covent Garden, shortly after it opened in November 1724, which was run by Sir James Thornhill, serjeant painter to George I. Hogarth became a member of the Rose and Crown Club, with Peter Tillemans, George Vertue, Michael Dahl, and other artists and connoisseurs. By April 1720, Hogarth was an engraver in his own right, at first engraving coats of arms and shop bills and designing plates for booksellers. In 1727, he was hired by Joshua Morris, a tapestry worker, to prepare a design for the Element of Earth. Morris heard that he was 'an engraver, and no painter', and consequently declined the work when completed. Hogarth accordingly sued him for the money in the Westminster Court, where the case was decided in his favour on 28 May 1728. Early satirical works included an Emblematical Print on the South Sea Scheme (c. 1721, published 1724), about the disastrous stock market crash of 1720, known as the South Sea Bubble. Other early works include The Lottery (1724); The Mystery of Masonry brought to Light by the Gormagons (1724); A Just View of the British Stage (1724); some book illustrations; and the small print Masquerades and Operas (1724). In 1726, Hogarth prepared twelve large engravings illustrating Samuel Butler's Hudibras. In the following years, he turned his attention to the production of small 'conversation pieces' (i.e., groups in oil of full-length portraits from 12 to 15 inches high). Among his efforts in oil between 1728 and 1732 were The Fountaine Family (c. 1730), The Assembly at Wanstead House, The House of Commons examining Bambridge, and several pictures of the chief actors in John Gay's popular The Beggar's Opera. One of his real-life subjects was Sarah Malcolm, whom he sketched two days before her execution. Hogarth's other works in the 1730s include A Midnight Modern Conversation (1733), Southwark Fair (1733), The Sleeping Congregation (1736), Before and After (1736), Scholars at a Lecture (1736), The Company of Undertakers (1736), The Distrest Poet (1736), The Four Times of the Day (1738), and Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn (1738).

Reader's Guide

Hogarth's significance lies in his creation of 'modern moral subjects', serialized picture narratives that combined satire, realism, and moral instruction. His series A Harlot's Progress (1731) and A Rake's Progress (1733–1735) were immediate successes, though the original paintings of the former were destroyed in a fire at Fonthill House in 1755. The success of these works led to widespread pirated reproductions, prompting Hogarth to lobby in parliament for legal protection. This resulted in the Engravers' Copyright Act (known as 'Hogarth's Act'), which became law on 25 June 1735 and was the first copyright law to deal with visual works as well as the first to recognise the authorial rights of an individual artist. His later series Marriage A-la-Mode (1743–1745) is regarded by many as his finest project, skewering upper-class 18th-century society. Hogarth's works were mass-produced via prints in his lifetime, and he was by far the most significant English artist of his generation. Charles Lamb deemed Hogarth's images to be books, filled with 'the teeming, fruitful, suggestive meaning of words. Other pictures we look at; his pictures we read.' The term 'Hogarthian' remains in use for satirical political illustrations in his style.

Did You Know?

• Hogarth's father was imprisoned for debt in the Fleet Prison for five years after opening an unsuccessful Latin-speaking coffee house.
• Hogarth sued a tapestry worker named Joshua Morris in 1727 and won the case in Westminster Court on 28 May 1728.
• The original paintings of A Harlot's Progress were destroyed in a fire at Fonthill House in 1755.
• The Engravers' Copyright Act of 1735, known as 'Hogarth's Act', was the first copyright law to deal with visual works.
• Charles Lamb said of Hogarth's images: 'Other pictures we look at; his pictures we read.'