23 May to 20 June 2009

Do you like a good story? William Hogarth's engravings include all the right ingredients! They show us the stark realities of life in London in the 1700s - often scandalous and corrupt. This exhibition tells his stories using engravings on loan from the Cuming Museum and Southwark Art Collection and costume from the Marion May Collection.

William Hogarth was famous during his life for his oil paintings and portraiture. However today he is more famous for his engraved works depicting London life such as 'Southwark Fair' and 'Gin Lane'. This exhibition includes over 20 of these engraved works and revealed the secrets of the characters, events and locations pictured.

   

This exhibition introduces and examines William Hogarth's remarkable career and the range of his work, from polite society portraits or 'conversation pieces 'to London street scenes depicting the seedy side of eighteenth-century life. Though well known for his brilliant satirical print series, Hogarth was also an accomplished and innovative.

Born in the City of London in 1697, Hogarth did not have an easy childhood. Though well educated and of modest social standing, his father was never able to use his talents to the full and was imprisoned for debt when Hogarth was only ten.  For four years, the family lived in debtors' lodgings near the Fleet Prison. Perhaps this experience instilled the determination with which Hogarth approached his own career. Apprenticed to an engraver at seventeen, by twenty three Hogarth had set himself up as an independent copper-plate engraver and enrolled in the Academy of Painting in St Martin's Lane.  Throughout the following four decades he pursued both printing and painting with a mixture of skill, innovation and self promotion, utilising his extraordinary artistic talent in as a way of supporting himself.

   

A Rakes Progress
William Hogarth produced a number of paintings and engravings telling a story about a central character. In his series “A Rakes Progress” William Horgarth tells the of Tom Rakewell who has inherited a lot of money from his dead father and how he goes about spending it an irresponsible manner. This story is a morality tale. A story about how someone behaves towards other people. Usually in this type of story a person has a choice to either act in a good or bad manner.

   

Four Times of the Day: 1736-1738
These engravings were based on paintings that Hogarth completed in 1736. They are humorous depictions of life on the busy streets of London in the 1730’s.  Rather than following different characters, these engravings show the progression of time throughout the day to illustrate the changing moods of the city. At the time London was the largest city in the world and the centre of an emerging empire. The pictures give us a real insight into the interactions between rich and poor people in the early 1700s.

Guildford House Gallery
155 High Street
Guildford
Surrey
GU1 3AJ

Tel: 01483 444742
Fax: 01483 458563
Email: guildfordhouse@guildford.gov.uk

Open Tuesday to Saturday.  10am to 4.45pm.  Admission Free