The Prints of William Hogarth

In its bicentennial year, Frankfurt’s Städel Museum is presenting ‘Vices of Life’, prints by the English painter, engraver and etcher William Hogarth (1697‒1764). With his famous tragicomic visual narratives such as “A Harlot’s Progress” (1732), “A Rake’s Progress” (1735) and “Marriage à la Mode” (1745), Hogarth founded a new genre he called “modern moral subjects”. In them he combined the critical portrayal of real conditions with the classical narrative of history painting. With keen powers of perception and caustic humour, he responded to the vices and downsides of life in the London metropolis. He conceived of his artworks as printed theatre of his times and with them he laid the cornerstone for socio-critical caricature in England.

Event website