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Biography of James Clark Hook (1819–1907)
English painter, born in Clerkenwell, London on 21 November 1819. Hook began his training under John Jackson, the portrait painter. In 1836, he completed his studies in the Royal Academy schools and by 1844 he had won the gold medal in a Houses of Parliament competition. In either 1845 or 1846 (sources differ) he was awarded the travelling prize from the Royal Academy, a scholarship that enabled him to spend a number of years in France and Italy. Having been thus exposed to the Italian Old Masters, Hook chose to develop his skills as a history and genre painter. On his return to London in 1848 he continued to exhibit at the Royal Academy. His subject matter remained within literary spheres. However, the extreme popularity of a rustic genre piece, ‘Luff, Boy!’, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1859, prompted him to shift his specialization away from history towards scenes of coastal and rural genre. It is from this second period that his ‘Catching a Mermaid’ (National Maritime Museum, London) stems. Hook was elected Royal Academician in 1860. He was also awarded a fellowship by the Royal Society of Painters and Etchers. Having won the admiration of Ruskin and captured the imagination of his Victorian audience, Hook died in Churt, Surrey, on 14 April 1907, aged 87, after a highly successful career.
View paintings by James Clark Hook
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