Hogarth: The Artist and the City

This beautifully illustrated book examines the whole of Hogarth's career, from his beginnings as a young and ambitious engraver in the 1720s, through to his rise to fame as a painter and printmaker in the 1730s and 1740s, and the crystallisation of his aesthetic theories in the treatise "The Analysis of Beauty", published in 1753. Where previous publications have concentrated on just a part of his multifaceted career, this definitive publication examines every aspect of his oeuvre. It examines his remarkable canvases, ranging from elegant conversation pieces to salacious brothel scenes, and from early pictorial sequences such as "A Rake's Progress" to the "Election" series he produced in the last decade of his life; his vibrant drawings and sketches; and the numerous engraved works for which he is perhaps most famous, including "Industry and Idleness", "Gin Lane", "Beer Street" and the "Four Stages of Cruelty". In telling the complete story of Hogarth's life and work, the book offers a new understanding of the breadth of his achievements, demonstrating his brilliance as a graphic satirist, urban commentator, draughtsman, portraitist and history painter, and highlighting his exceptionally innovative role in creating a new kind of art form, the satirical pictorial series. Published to accompany a major touring exhibition, "Hogarth" provides the most comprehensive publication on this remarkable artist in print, revealing his unique contribution to the development of modern British art.