Dublin City

23 Juli 2012 - 18 November 2012

William Hogarth (1697-1764) was a successful painter, printmaker and satirist. The four paintings and ten prints on display in this exhibition illustrate the contrast between the awful realities of life shown in his popular print series on moral subjects, and ideal family life as depicted in the gracious family portraits he did on commission. The full set of four ‘Cruelty’ prints (1751) are complemented by single prints from The Harlot’s Progress (1732) and The Rake’s Progress (1735). The scandalous scene depicted in his oil The Denunciation (1729) contrasts with the happiness and innocence of childhood portrayed in his portrait of the Mackinen children painted in the 1740s.