Brief Biography-William Hogarth was born into an impoverished family in Smithfield, London, in 1697. His father was held in the debtor’s prison when William was only nine years old. Three years later, his father was released, and through an uncle, A silver plate engraver named Ellis Gamble apprenticed him. Six years into his apprenticeship, due to necessity, he set up his own engraving business in his mother’s house as his parents had died. After three years, he entered an academy in Saint Martin’s Lane and went on to the Academy of James Thornhill, the history painter.
Hogarth eventually became successful at his work and opened his Academy in Saint Martin’s Lane for young artists. He did engravings for literary works and began to paint in oil. He married the daughter of James Thornhill in 1729 and began to achieve a reasonable living as a portraitist, painting the city’s nobility.
In 1731, he painted the series A Harlot’s Progress and shortly after hit upon producing it as engravings. Harlot’s Progress was a tremendous success, and he set up a print-seller business that he advertised outside his shop with the gilded head of Sir Anthony van Dyck. He also painted religious commissions for churches but felt more suited to his work as a printmaker and artistic satirist. He succeeded James Thornhill as serjeant-painter to the King in 1757.
Before he produced The Rake’s Progress, he successfully had parliament pass a bill for the Engraver’s Copyright Act in 1735, as other printmakers had pirated his works. However, this was to be his last major profitable publication. His later works, of which he had some published by other engravers, were not so successful, and his paintings also failed to achieve success at auctions. Nevertheless, his book The Analysis of Beauty became a best seller and is highly regarded today. His last work was The Bathos in October of the same year he died in 1764.