William Hogarth (1697-1764) is one of England's greatest printmakers who satirized his country's moral condition. The exhibition Death by Hogarth, on display at the Fogg Art Museum from May 8 through July 18, 1999, will examine Hogarth's prints that address the three implications the word execution-as performance, as death sentenced on official order, and as the process of following a plan through to its natural end-with an emphasis on images related to hanging. Most of the approximately fifty prints to be displayed will come from the collection of Suzanne and Gerald Labiner and others will be loaned from collections throughout Harvard University and are rarely exhibited. Comparative prints by other artists will also be included.

In early modern England public execution was as popular an amusement as pleasure gardens, fairs and theater extravaganzas. Art, performance and capital punishment blended irreverently in grisly castigation spectacles staged northwest of London at the three-sided gallows known as Tyburn. Hogarth fleshed out numerous print narratives with references to criminal culture and the melodramatic rituals that accompanied executions. Yet, while other creative persons reacted against the harsh legal environment by romanticizing insurgence and portraying a sympathetic fascination with the condemned criminal, Hogarth's prints present execution as one of many unfortunate worldly ends earned by a life of dishonesty.

PUBLIC PROGRAMMING - ALL IN 1999

Gallery Talks
Saturday, May 15, 11:30 a.m.
Sunday, June 13, 2:00 p.m.
Saturday, July 10, 11:30 a.m.
Elizabeth Kathleen Mitchell, 1997-1999 Lynn and Philip A. Straus Intern, Print Department.

Film Series
High Society, Low Life
May 20-23, 1999 (for specific dates and times see below)
Harvard Film Archive, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, 24 Quincy Street, Cambridge, Admission: $6 per movie

Thursday, May 20, 7:00 p.m., Saturday, May 22, 2:00 p.m., Sunday, May 23, 7:00 p.m.
Barry Lyndon (1975, 183 minutes) directed by Stanley Kubrick
Ryan O'Neal stars in this visually stunning adaptation of the novel by William Makepeace Thakeray about social climbing and excess. The film's lavish cinematography is renowned as creating a near-as-possible evocation of eighteenth-century England.

Friday, May 21, 6:00 p.m., Saturday, May 22, 9:00 p.m.
Beggar's Opera (1953, 94 minutes) directed by Peter Brook
This artful film based on John Gay's wildly successful 1724 musical play features Sir Lawrence Olivier in the role of highwayman MacHeath, a condemned Newgate prisoner caught in a precarious love triangle.

Friday, May 21, 8:00 p.m., Saturday, May 22, 6:30 p.m., Sunday, May 23, 2:00 p.m.
Tom Jones (1963, 131 minutes) directed by Tony Richardson
Lust, class, illegitimacy and drama on the scaffold figure prominently in this raucous cinematic version of Henry Fielding's novel. Tom Jones won four Oscars, including a best actor award for Albert Finney as Tom Jones.

Death by Hogarth is organized by Elizabeth Kathleen Mitchell, 1997-1999 Lynn and Philip A. Straus Intern, Print Department, and is supported with funds from the John M. Rosenfield Teaching Exhibition Fund. The Curatorial Internship Program at the Art Museums is designed to broaden the experience of persons embarking on professional and scholarly careers in art history who are considering the museum profession. Mitchell's essay and catalogue for the exhibition will be published in a Harvard University Art Museums Bulletin.
See also Press Release and Exhibition Catalog.