William Hogarth

AIMM

William Hogarth was a seminal English artist known for his paintings and engravings of satirical and moralistic themes. His best-known works include the etching Gin Lane (1751), which illustrated in raucous detail the dangers of drinking gin for the poorer classes of London. “I have endeavored to treat my subjects as a dramatic writer: my picture is my stage, and men and women my players,” he once said. Born on November 10, 1697 in London, United Kingdom, Hogarth showed an early propensity for making quick sketches of people in the bustling city. Trained as a silversmith during his teenage years, Hogarth initially learned engraving as a means to support himself. After opening his own print shop at the age of 23, he began studying painting in his spare time under Sir James Thornhill. Soon after, Hogarth quickly developed an improvisational style of painting in which he based his compositions on memories of everyday scenes. By the age of 30, the artist was already creating competent pictures in the tradition of the Rococo painter Jean-Antoine Watteau. Over the decades that followed, Hogarth made a name for himself both with his series of eight narrative paintings A Rake’s Progress (1734) and the deftly painted portrait Shrimp Girl (ca. 1740). The artist died on October 26, 1764 in London, United Kingdom. Today, his works are held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Tate Gallery in London, and the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, among others. [artnet]