Satire, Sympathy, and Social Critique: William Hogarth’s Progress Prints

“Satire, Sympathy, and Social Critique” will be on view at Beinecke Library from Oct. 6, 2026, through May 30, 2027.

Drawing from the rich William Hogarth collections of Yale’s Lewis Walpole Library, “Satire, Sympathy, and Social Critique” investigates the power and reverberating impact of the artist’s acclaimed “moral progress” prints. Hogarth’s contemporaries immediately recognized these works for their ability to both entertain and call out cruelty and injustice, and artists and publishers over the following centuries have engaged with Hogarth’s modern moral subjects through appropriation and parody.

The exhibition features six of Hogarth’s “moral progresses,” which are simultaneously satirical and empathetic, as well as additional archival context on the artist’s commitment to social and political advocacy. Selected examples of responses and reuses of Hogarth’s prints, both written and visual, from the 18th to the 21st centuries demonstrate the continued and enduring relevance of these works.