William Hodges

British, 1744-1797

NationalityBritish

BiographyWilliam Hodges was born in London, October 28, 1744 and died in Brixham, Devon, March 6, 1797.

Hodges is best known for his depictions of exotic locations. In 1758 he began his career with a seven-year apprenticeship to the landscape painter Richard Wilson, and from 1765 he exhibited regularly at the Society of Artists. He traveled across the Alps in 1771 and served as the official artist on Captain James Cook's second voyage to the South Pacific from 1772-75. In 1775 the Admiralty commissioned him to paint large-scale versions of his sketches from this voyage, and engravings after these (which he supervised) were published in Cook's A Voyage towards the South Pole (1777). Between 1779 and 1783 Hodges worked in India, where he produced a series of topographical views. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1786, but retired nine years later, having incurred the wrath of George IV with the private exhibition of his Effects of Peace and Consequences of War, paintings which were interpreted as pro-democratic.

Person TypeIndividual