For Immediate Release
January 15, 2008
 
Haggerty Museum features the illustrative satire of William Hogarth
 
(Milwaukee, WI) The Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University is presenting "William Hogarth: British Satirical Prints", an exhibition featuring 28 etchings and engravings from the permanent collection by the eighteenth-century British painter and engraver from February 7-April 13, 2008. The opening talk and reception will be on February 21, 2008 beginning at 6 p.m. featuring Dr. Sean Shesgreen's presentation of "William Hogarth: Worlds of Virtue Worlds of Vice". This exhibition is sponsored in part by the Stackner Family Endowment Fund.
 
Dr. Sean Shesgreen is a distinguished research professor at Northern Illinois University Department of English and a visiting professor at Stanford University. His interests lie in the relationships between art, social history, and literature with special reference to eighteenth-century England. His books include "Hogarth and the Times of the Day Tradition" (Cornell, 1982), "The Criers and Hawkers of London" (Stanford, 1990) and "Images of the Outcast: The Urban Poor in the Cries of London" (Rutgers, 2002).
 
A primary focus of the exhibition will be 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.
 
William Hogarth was born in London in 1697. Beginning at an early age, he learned to engrave trade cards, apprenticed with a silversmith, and then worked for a number of print sellers and created book illustrations. Considered among his best book illustrations are those he produced in 1726 for Samuel Butler’s satirical poem "Hudibras". This type of collaboration and production of serial images interested Hogarth.
 
As a matter of principal, Hogarth would not engrave the work of other visual artists and concentrated on his own published work. Printing enabled the artist to circulate his images to a wider audience and to earn a living. Hogarth worked in oil on canvas before publishing the same subjects as prints. The image, typically copied directly onto a plate, is reversed when printed. Some of Hogarth’s prints are based on drawings, but he often worked directly on copperplates and included text. After Hogarth’s death in 1764, Thomas Cook continued to create prints of Hogarth’s work. 
 
Hogarth entertained his audiences with his serial story cycles. Influenced by Dutch genre paintings and the works of French mannerist printmaker Jacques Callot, Hogarth created group scenes and dealt with everyday subjects which he called modern moral subjects ranging in style from realistic portraits to comedic series. A master at creating complex scenes, Hogarth's figures are set into a context that enriches the understanding of them and their situations. "A Harlot's Progress" of 1732, a moralizing tale of country girl who moves to London only to find herself entrapped in the world of prostitution, followed by "A Rake’s Progress" in 1735, solidified Hogarth’s reputation.
 
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Opened in 1984 on the Marquette University campus, the Haggerty Museum of Art includes four main galleries and houses a permanent collection of more than 6,500 works of art. It regularly offers exhibitions showing cultural diversity and art influenced by modern technology. The permanent collection includes European and American contemporary art, Old Master paintings, as well as works on paper, photography and collections of African and Asian art.
 
The Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University is located at North 13th Street and West Clybourn Avenue.
 
Museum hours are Monday–Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.
 
The museum offers free admission and is open to the public.
 
Free parking is available in the Haggerty Museum Parking Lot (enter on 11th St. through Marquette Lot J).
 
For directions, click here  

For more information call Mary Dornfeld at (414) 288-1669