William Hogarth: British Satirical Prints
February 7 – April 13, 2008

William Hogarth, The Harlot at Her Dwelling in Drury Lane (Plate III) from A Harlot’s Progress, 1732

William Hogarth (1697-1764) was one of the leading British artists of the first half of the eighteenth century.  Hogarth was a painter, printmaker (engraver), pictorial satirist and illustrator credited with working in series before it was commonplace.  Hogarth’s interest in the problems of everyday life sparked his creation of comic, yet moralizing, narrative prints.

A primary focus of the exhibition was Hogarth’s 1744 edition of A Harlot’s Progress, a set of six prints about Mary (or Moll) Hackabout, a young woman from the country who becomes a prostitute after moving to London.  Hogarth drew from John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress in creating the series title and allegorical content.  The exhibition will also feature several series including; The Four Stages of Cruelty (1751), Analysis of Beauty (1753) and Invasion:  France and England (c.1754). 

Many of the prints in the exhibition were engraved by Thomas Cook, who produced Hogarth’s designs after the artist’s death in 1764.

This exhibition is sponsored in part by the Stackner Family Endowment Fund.