Hogarth Hill – William Hogarth (1697-1764)

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/william-hogarth-265
https://artuk.org/discover/artists/hogarth-william-16971764
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/william-hogarth

William Hogarth was born in London to a lower-middle-class family – his father, a school teacher was imprisoned for debt, which is thought to have had an impact on Hogarth’s art.  He apprenticed to an engraver and set up his own business by 1720.  He studied painting at the St Martin’s Lane Academy. His works consisted of paintings, engravings, pictorial satires and cartoons with subjects ranging from portraits to series of sketches depicting ‘modern moral subjects’ such as A Harlot’s Progress, A Rake’s Progress and Marriage A-la-Mode. During his lifetime his engravings were mass produced via prints; Charles Lamb said Hogarth’s work illustrated ‘the teeming, fruitful, suggestive meaning of words.  Other pictures we look at; his pictures we read.’ Hogarth’s engravings were so often plagiarised that he lobbied for the Copyright Act of 1735 to protect writers and artists.