William Hoggatt

Epithet: An 'almost Manx' artist (1879-1961)

Record type: Biographies

Biography: William Hoggatt was the son of James Hoggatt, a joiner/carpenter. Hoggatt’s artistic talents were recognised whilst he was still at school when he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art. Rather than study in London Hoggatt chose to be apprenticed to a local firm of stained glass manufacturers and continued his studies at the Storey Institute in Lancaster. He was later sponsored by H. L. Storey to study at the Academie Julian, one of the leading private international art schools in Paris.

Hoggatt eloped to the Isle of Man in 1907 with Dazine, a friend’s sister he had met whilst working at the Tate Gallery in London. They were married for 54 years.

Hoggatt’s work was reproduced in journals such as The Connoisseur and The Studio. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy in London from the early 1900s until his death. In 1925 he was elected to the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours. He was also a member of the Liverpool and Manchester Academies.

Hoggatt and his wife used their home to provide a regular meeting place for members of the Island’s artistic community, he was also unstinting in his encouragement of local artists, giving demonstration lectures at the Manx Museum and acting as President of the Manx Artists Group.

Art:
Once Hoggatt moved to the Isle of Man he restricted his painting entirely to Manx subjects. Many of his finest watercolours, pastels and oil paintings were drawn from scenes within walking distance of his Port Erin home. These local scenes won him an international reputation.
…in each, one caught a glimpse of typical Manx landscape...Here a view across the Curragh, there a wide sweep of land and sea from Port St. Mary to Langness, … here a restful evening on Laxey beach, there Ravensdale Glen. Or, if you prefer it, there is Spanish Head ("the sea-gulls paradise"), or Kirk Michael aglow in the freshness of the morning, or Castle Rushen nestling snugly, in the haze of a quie evening. Elsewhere perhaps it is only a busy farmyard scene, or a windswept stretch of heath glinting under an eloquent sky and bathed in a brilliant, almost intoxicating, atmosphere. But always, always, it is the Island.
N. E. Nash, Manx Quarterly, 1925.

Occupation / profession: artist

Nationality: English

Gender: Male

Date of birth: 1879

Place of birth: Lancaster, England

Date of death: 1961

Place of death: The Darragh, Port Erin, Isle of Man

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