James Clarke Hook RA (November 21, 1819 - April 14, 1907) was an English painter of marine, genre and historical scenes, and landscapes.
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Hook was born in London, the son of James Hook, from Northumberland, and Judge Arbitrator of Sierra Leone. His mother was the second daughter of Bible scholar Dr Adam Clarke - hence the painter's second name. Young Hook's first taste of the sea was on board the Berwick smacks which took him on his way to Wooler. He drew with rare facility, and determined to become an artist, practiced his work, on his own initiative, for more than a year in the sculpture galleries of the British Museum.
In 1836, Hook was admitted as a student to the Royal Academy, London, where he worked for three years, and also learnt more about painting technique from a nephew of John Opie. His first picture, called "The Hard Task," was exhibited in 1837, and represented a girl helping her sister with a lesson. His talent for portraiture, and a desire to earn his own living, took him to Ireland where he painted the Waterford family and others. Here, also, he produced landscapes of the Vale of Avoca, and developed his taste for pastoral art. He later returned to England and painted in Kent and Somerset.
In 1842, Hook's second exhibited work was a portrait of Master J. Finch Smith. In the same year he won silver medals at the Royal Academy, and in 1843 was one of the competitors in an exhibition of cartoons (preliminary drawings) in Westminster Hall,[1] with a design called "Satan in Paradise". In 1844 the Academy showed his "Pamphilius relating his Story" (inspired by the Decameron), which consisted of a meadow scene in bright light, with sumptuous women, richly clad, reclining on the grass.
In 1844 and 1845 the British Institution exhibited two of Hook's idylls - subjects taken from Shakespeare and Burns, which, with the above, showed him able to handle themes of romantic sentiment and the picturesque which were then in vogue, but in an original and vigorous manner. "The Song of Olden Times" (Royal Academy, 1845) marked the artist's future path distinctly in most technical respects. It was in this year Hook won the Academy gold medal for "The Finding of the Body of Harold."
A travelling studentship in painting was awarded to Hook for "Rizpah watching the Dead Sons of Saul" in 1846, and he went to Italy for three years, having married fellow artist, Rosalie Burton, before leaving England. Hook passed through Paris, worked diligently for some time in the Louvre, traversed Switzerland, and, though be stayed only part of three years in Italy, gained much from studies of Titian, Tintoretto, Carpaccio, Mansueti and other Venetians.
The influence of these old masters dominated the future coloration of Hooke's pictures, and he applied the artistic lessons learned from his travels to the painting of romantic subjects and those English themes of land and sea which became his trademarks. "A Dream of Ancient Venice" (RA, 1848), "Bayard of Brescia" (R.A., 1849), "Venice" (BI, 1849) and other works, won him an Associateship of the Royal Academy in 1851.
Soon afterwards Hook undertook a series of country scenes and idylls of the sea and rocks. "A Rest by the Wayside" and "A Few Minutes to Wait before Twelve o'clock" (1854) proved him to be a new and original painter. After these came "A Signal on the Horizon" (1857), "A Widow's Son going to Sea," "The Ship-boy's Letter," "Children's Children are the Crown of Old Men," "A Coast-boy gathering Eggs," a scene at Lundy; "Luff, Boy!" (1859), "The Book, Stand Clear! O Well for the Fishermans Boy!" (1860), "Leaving Cornwall for the Whitby Fishing," "Sea Urchins," and many more. The artist was elected a full Academician (RA) on March 6, 1860.
Hook continued to exhibit every year until 1902. His work took him to picturesque coastal villages, usually off the tourist trail, where he painted "en plein air" in Scotland, Devon and Cornwall. He would later return to his country house in Surrey (his final residence was an estate near Churt), in order to put the final touches to each picture.[2]
Hook died in April 1907. Two of his sons were also artists: Allan James Hook (1853-1946), a marine painter, and Bryan Hook (1856-1925), an animal and bird painter.[2]
Artwork by Hook is held at the Tate Gallery, Royal Academy of Arts and Guildhall Art Gallery in London, and in Galleries in Manchester, Liverpool, Aberdeen etc. A chronology of his exhibited works can be found at the James Clarke Hook website.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "James Clarke Hook". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/James_Clarke_Hook.