Biography for William Hogarth

Education

Hogarth trained as an engraver in the Rococo tradition and began his career by making a living from book illustration. He studied painting in his free time at the St Martin's Lane Academy and later under Sir James Thornhill.

Employment

By 1730 Hogarth had made a name for himself through his portrait paintings but was also beginning to develop a new type of painting which used a series or sequence of pictures to tell a story, usually one that commented on social conditions or satirized aristocratic society. Series included 'A Harlot's Progress' (c. 1731), 'A Rake's Progress' (c. 1735), and 'Marriage à la Mode' (c. 1743). Engravings were then made from the original oil paintings and became famous from their great popularity with the public.
Hogarth ran his own art academy in St Martin's Lane from 1735 to 1755 and in 1753 he published his treatise on aesthetic theory entitled, 'The Analysis of Beauty' in which he stated that the views of a practising artist should hold greater weight than those of a connoisseur.