Progress, The Foundling Museum

At the Foundling Museum Yinka Shonibare, David Hockney, Grayson Perry and Jessie Brenan provide fascinating contemporary responses to the idea of ‘progress’ 

The Backstory...

Hogarth's series of eight paintings, A Rake's Progress, is somehow embedded deep in London's psyche even centuries after it was produced. The paintings - which together tell the story of the moral decline of the spendthrift Tom Rakewell - reflect the city's propensity to inspire avarice and excess, conspicuous consumption and recklessness. They feature landmarks such as Fleet Prison and Bedlam Hospital which now have near mythical status.

The paintings have inspired many tributes and imitations. Marking the 250th anniversary of Hogarth's death, The Foundling Museum is bringing together three remarkable contemporary responses to Hogarth's iconic morality tale for their latest exhibition, Progress.

The artworks... 

David Hockney and Grayson Perry have both directly tackled A Rake's Progress. Hockney's version of the story is semi-autobiographical; inspired by the artist's first visit to New York, it depicts the  freedoms and corruptive power of the city. Meanwhile Grayson Perry's 2012 tapestry The Vanity of Small Differences satirises the twin obsessions of consumerism and class.

Yinka Shonibare’s 1998 suite of photographs, Diary of a Victorian Dandy, has a looser relationship with A Rake's Progress. Shonibare transplants Tom Rakewell's story to the height of the British Empire; Shonibare himself plays a black version of Hogarth's protagonist in these photos. Featuring fawning white servants and social climbing, Shonibare's work offers a less moralising, and more subversive take on the rake's life.

These works will be shown alongside original Hogarth prints and a newly commissioned work by the young artist Jessie Brennan. Brennan has produced a series of pencil drawings exploring the progressive dreams and imminent destruction of the East London modernist social housing development Robin Hood Gardens.

Each of these artists demonstrates the continuing relevance of Hogarth's masterpiece, and each artist updates it by interjecting with their own concerns and interests. 250 years after Hogarth's death, his work seems to be as vital as ever.