Hogarth: His Art, Life and Times. A Tribute to Ronald Paulson

Organized by the Lewis Walpole Library in collaboration with the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Library, and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, this symposium celebrates the generous gift by Professor Paulson (1930-2024) of his papers together with a legacy endowment to establish a fellowship at the Lewis Walpole Library in memory of his son, Andrew Meredith Paulson.

Speakers will present creative new research in Hogarth studies across multi-disciplinary perspectives. Panel themes will include “Paulson’s Hogarth,” “Drawing,” “Nation and Empire,” and “Social and Political Critique.” Additional programming will include screenings of selected films about William Hogarth, plus Study Room visits and Gallery Tours by advance sign-up.

Click here to find out further details about the symposium: https://walpole.library.yale.edu/programs/hogarth-symposium-2026

Registration is requested. Click here to register for the symposium: https://walpole.library.yale.edu/webform/hogarth-his-art-life-and-times

This program is made possible through the support of the Lewis Walpole Library and a generous gift of Richard Greenberg in memory of Ronald Paulson.

Complementary exhibition:
Satire, Sympathy, and Social Critique: William Hogarth’s Progress Prints (https://library.yale.edu/events/satire-sympathy-and-social-critique-william-hogarths-progress-prints)
On view at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
October 12, 2026–May 30, 2027

SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE

DAY 1 - Wednesday 14 October (Evening)
Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT

4:30 PM to 4:45 PM
Welcome Remarks

4:45 to 6:15 PM
PANEL 1: Paulson’s Hogarth
Moderator: Jill Campbell (Professor of English, Yale University)
Speakers:
• Zirwat Chowdhury (Assistant Professor of 18th- and 19th-Century European Art, UCLA), Lessing’s Hogarth, Hogarth’s Paulson
• Douglas Fordham (Professor of Art History, University of Virginia), Breaking and Remaking Hogarth’s Bristol Altarpiece
• Caroline Patey (Chair Professor of English Literature (Professore Ordinario di Letteratura Inglese), Università degli Studi, Milano), William Hogarth, the Novel Maker

6:15 PM to 6:45 PM
Film Screening introduced by Pierre Von-Ow (Associate Lecturer in Early Modern Art History, University of St. Andrews)

DAY 2 - Thursday 15 October (All Day)
Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT

10:15 AM to 11:45 PM
PANEL 2: Drawing
Moderator: Laurel Peterson (Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings, Yale Center for British Art)
Speakers:
• Zoë Dostal (Visiting Assistant Professor of Art, Amherst College), Life Models, Hemp Rope, and the Line of Beauty
• Stacey Sloboda (Paul H. Tucker Professor of Art History, University of Massachusetts, Boston), Boys Peeping at Nature: Drawing and Modeling at the St. Martin’s Lane Academy
• Jennifer Tonkovich (Eugene and Clare Thaw Curator, The Morgan Library), The Mutable Page: Hogarth’s Drawings

12:00 PM to 12:30 PM
Film Screening introduced by Pierre Von-Ow (Associate Lecturer in Early Modern Art History, University of St. Andrews)

2:00 PM to 3:00 PM
Breakout Sessions

3:15 PM to 4:15 PM
Breakout Sessions

5:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Reception at BEINECKE RARE BOOK & MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY
• Exhibition on View: Satire, Sympathy, and Social Critique: William Hogarth’s Progress Prints

DAY 3 - Friday 16 October (All Day)
Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT

10:15 AM to 11:45 AM
PANEL 3: Patriotism and Empire
Moderator: Tim Barringer (Paul Mellon Professor of the History of Art, Yale University)
Speakers:
• Holly Shaffer (Associate Professor of Art and Architecture, and Director of Undergraduate Studies, Brown University), Columbus Breaking the Egg: Hogarth’s Invitation to Supper
• Pierre Von-Ow (Associate Lecturer in Early Modern Art History, University of St. Andrews), A New British Order: Hogarth’s Design for a Domestic Column Capital
• Catherine Roach (Associate Professor of Art History, Virginia Commonwealth University), “Purely English”: Hogarth, Nation, and Empire in the Early Nineteenth Century

12:00 PM to 1:00 PM
Breakout Sessions

2:00 PM to 3:30 PM
PANEL 4: Social and Political Critique
Moderator: Miya Tokumitsu (Donald T. Fallati and Ruth E. Pachman Curator of the Davison Art Collection, Wesleyan University)
Speakers:
• Meredith Gamer (Associate Professor of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University), Hogarth’s Children
• Andrew Rudd (FSA, Director of Studies at Anglo Educational Services in London), Hogarth, Walpole, and London’s Children’s Charities
• Phil Withington (Professor of Social and Cultural History, University of Sheffield), Hogarth, Addiction, and Political Economy in Early Modern London

3:30 PM to 4:00 PM
Film Screening introduced by Pierre Von-Ow (Associate Lecturer in Early Modern Art History, University of St. Andrews)

4:15 PM to 4:45 PM
Breakout Session