Paul Hogarth’s books and reviews…

Regulars to this site will doubtless have realised my admiration for the work of the late artist Paul Hogarth whom I have featured on a number of occasions from his Graham Greene covers to his own books and collaborations with writers and poets such as Robert Graves, Graham Greene, Lawrence Durrell, Malcolm Muggeridge, Peter Mayle and Brendan Behan.

Life and Career:

Paul Hogarth was born Arthur Paul Hoggarth on October 4th 1917 in Kendal, a town in the English Lake District. Having moved to Manchester at the age of six he went on to attend the Manchester School of Art in 1934 where he became a member of the Communist Party. In 1936 he moved to London to study at St Martin’s School of Art but was soon playing his part in the Spanish Civil War where he drove lorries for the International Brigade. Renaming himself Paul Hogarth with one ‘g’ he discovered that he was a descendent of the artist William Hogarth (1697-1764) , who, by remarkable coincidence had also dropped a ‘g’ in his name!

In the early 1950s Hogarth fulfilled his dream of being the travelling artist by  visiting the eastern bloc countries of Poland and Czechoslovakia and later China and the Soviet Union before accompanying Doris Lessing to South Africa for her 1957 book Going Home. It was during these travels that Hogarth’s unique style came to the fore, his reportage style of drawing brought to wider audiences glimpses of lives lived in segregated countries, its importance shouldn’t be underestimated.

Hogarth also taught art, from 1959 to 1961 he was the senior tutor at  Cambridge School of Art before teaching at the Royal College of Art from 1964 until 1971. In between his teaching he was regularly contributing pieces for book publishers, literature was his other great love and it shows in his remarkable covers for Penguin and in particular, Graham Greene. In 1962 Penguin approached Hogarth to illustrate their new editions of Greene’s books and so began a working relationship between the artist and writer which would last for almost thirty years. Such was Greene’s admiration for Hogarth’s art that he would, on occasion secretly buy his paintings and such was the reciprocal  admiration that in 1985 Hogarth embarked on a year long journey to every one of Greene’s locations in his books. Fans of Greene must surely get a copy of Graham Greene Country to better understand not only the books but Greene himself, it is a truly joyous book.

Following the success of the Greene collaboration Hogarth secured a book deal to tour and paint the Mediterranean featuring the works of another author, Lawrence Durrell. Despite Durrell’s struggle with emphysema through heavy smoking he had lost little of his drive, inspiring Hogarth to some of his best work. There can be no doubting Hogarth’s love of the settings from Durrell’s books and especially those locations featured in The Alexandria Quartet and The Avignon Quintet. Like Greene, Hogarth struck up a relationship with Durrell which would last until the writers death in November 1990.

In 1991 Paul Hogarth created a series of watercolours for the popular travel writer Peter Mayle and a special edition of his best selling A Year in Provence. Hogarth loved this project, a one-stop-shop in Provence followed by a very successful exhibition in which every picture featured in the book had been sold within the first week. In 1997 his autobiography Drawing on Life was published, a wonderful book in the same format as his Greene and Durrell collaborations. Awarded the OBE in 1989 he was also a full member of the Royal Academy of Arts. Married four times with one son, Paul Hogarth died on December 27th 2001 at the age of eighty four.

Paul Hogarth Bibliography:

It isn’t practical to feature every book Hogarth was involved in, some were little more than book covers or the odd illustration. Below are all of his major works in chronological order. I have also added some of his notable covers for Penguin and pages on this website relating to my own personal favourites.

Those titles with links attached contain reviews from my own collection.

Books:

Defiant People: Drawings of Greece Today (Lawrence & Wishart 1953)

Drawings of Poland (Wydawnictwo Artystczno-Graficzne 1954)

Looking at China (Lawrence & Wishart 1956)

People Like Us: Drawings of South Africa and Rhodesia ( Dobson 1958)

Brendan Behan’s Island (Hutchinson 1962)

Brendan Behan’s New York (Hutchinson 1964)

Creative Pencil Drawing (Studio Vista 1964)

Majorca Observed with Robert Graves (Cassell 1965)

London a la Mode (with Malcolm Muggeridge) (Studio Vista1966)

The Artist as Reporter (London 1967)

Creative Ink Drawing (Studio Vista 1968)

A Russian Journey (with Alaric Jacob) (Cassell 1969)

Drawing People (Watson-Guptill 1971)

Drawing Architecture (Watson-Guptill 1973)

Paul Hogarth’s American Album: Drawings 1962-1965 (Lion & Unicorn Press 1973)

Paul  Hogarth’s Walking Tours of Old Philadelphia (Barre 1976)

Paul Hogarth’s Walking Tours of Old Boston (Dutton 1978)

America Observed with Stephen Spender (Potter 1979)

Paul Hogarth’s Walking Tours of Old Washington and Alexandria (EPM 1985)

Graham Greene Country (Pavilion 1986)

The Mediterranean Shore: Travels in Lawrence Durrell Country (Pavilion 1988)

A Year in Provence with Peter Mayle (Hamish Hamilton 1992)

Drawing on Life: An Autobiography of Paul Hogarth (David and Charles 1997)

Exhibitions:

Cold War Reports (1947-1967)

Travels in the Footsteps of D.H. Lawrence (1996)

Graham Greene Covers:

An overview

A Burnt Out Case, The Ministry of Fear and The Heart of the Matter

With Others:

John Betjeman: In Praise of Churches (1996)