William Hogarth

Hogarth was the son of a poor schoolteacher and textbook writer, but fate blessed him with enormous talent, an ambitious nature and excellent business sense. In just a few years he went from silversmith’s apprentice to one of England’s most skilled and original artists. He was an outspoken social critic who used his art to expose injustices and pillory them, seasoned with cutting wit and a good dose of humour. Hogarth broke artistic taboos, loved attention and basked in the dubious reputation of his Covent Garden studio and gallery. According to one contemporary account, a young man was so outraged by a satirical portrait of his father, a police magistrate, that he drove to the artist’s gallery and cut the face out of the painting.

From the page of Marriage A-la-Mode: II. The Tête à Tête