Derbyshire gallery hosts world-class Hogarth collection featuring more than 40 exhibits

William Hogarth, The March of the Guards to Finchley, 1749-1750, oil on canvas (copyright: The Foundling Museum, London).

A world-class exhibition showcasing 18th century artist William Hogarth is on display in a Derbyshire gallery.

More than 40 works by Hogarth, including some of his most celebrated paintings and portraits, can be seen at Derby Museum and Art Gallery until June 4, 2023.

The exhibition has been made possible by partnerships with The National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery, several major grants and a public appeal, which raised an impressive £20,000 from museum supporters in Derby and beoyond last autumn.

King Charles III is among individuals who have loaned paintings to the exhibition. An intimate portrait of King George II and has family is among loans from the Royal Collection Trust.

Senor curator Lucy Bamford, executive director Tony Butler and exhibition co-curator Dr Jacqueline Ridingwith Hogarth's The March of the Guards to Fincheley, 1749-50 from The Foundry Museum, London (photo: Oliver Taylor/Derby Museums)

Visitors will be able to see many of Hogarth’s masterpieces including The March of the Guards to Finchley (Foundling Museum, London) and Marriage A-La-Mode (The National Gallery, London) alongside other major Hogarth paintings including The Shrimp Girl (The National Gallery, London) and The Beggar’s Opera (Birmingham Museums).

William Hogarth, a celebrated painter, graphic satirist, art theorist and socail commentator, was influenced by Europeans and British art, as well as English literature and theatre. His works range from life size portraits to stories told through multiple connected scenes, which he called ‘modern moral subjects.’

Hogarth has inspired contemporary artists from Grayson Perry to Lubaina Himid, satirists and cartoonists from Cold War Steve to Martin Rowson,and ground-breaking film directors such as Sergei Eisenstein and Stanley Kubrick.

Lucy Bamford, senior curator of fine art at Derby Museum said: “Hogarth’s work explores a time of great turmoil in Britain, including the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. Derby played a pivotal role in these events, being the furthest point south reached by the Jacobine army during its campaign to take the British throne, led by Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) whose statue still stands on Derby Cathedral’s Green today. It was also in Derby that the famous Council of War convened in December 1745, and here that the decision to turn back to Scotland was made, ultimately leading to the Jacobites’ devastating defeat at the Battle of Culloden in April 1746.

"The works in this exhibition explores themes around national identity and what it means to be British, offering us a rich political and social commentary that still resonates today.”

Admission to Hogarth’s Britons: Succession, Patriotism, and the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion exhibition is free with an invitation to ‘Give What You Think’.