James Clarke Hook: A Biography

Portrait of James Clarke Hook

Portrait of James Clarke Hook
in The Magazine of Art, 1878.
James Clarke Hook, R.A. (1819-1907) was a famous painter in his day, though less known than he deserves to be today. He started his career as a painter of historical subjects, but is best known for his coastal landscape and scenes of the lives and work of fisher folk.

He received instruction in his youth from Jackson and Constable; proceeded as a student at the British Museum, qualified for the Royal Academy Schools, and distinguished himself there, and won their Travelling Studentship to travel to Italy. On the strength of this he married, and in 1846 he and his wife Rosalie (also a painter) travelled through France to Florence. From there they visited Rome and Naples, returned to Florence, then sojourned in Parma before turning to work again in Venice. By this time the various states of Italy were agitating for political reform, an end to Austrian rule, and unification. Early in 1848 revolution broke out in Palermo and Milan, and soon reached Venice; and despite their sympathy with the Italian cause, the Hooks had to leave Italy, while the guns of the revolution were booming.

James Clarke Hook, A.R.A.

"James Clarke Hook, A.R.A, from a
photograph by R.Howlett", in the Illustrated
Times of June 5, 1858. Note that he is already
identified by his fisherman's gear as a painter
of fishermen's lives, although he changed his
subject matter from historical scenes to English
rural and coastal scenes only in the mid-1850s.

Back in England, Hook completed and exhibited a number of historical subjects, including scenes from Italian history and Shakespeare's plays, especially those with a Venetian setting, Othello and The Merchant of Venice. And on the strength of this work he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1850. During the 1850s, however, partly as a result of a move from London to the country, Hook changed to genre and contemporary rural scenes. Then a series of visits to Clovelly in Devon determined his choice of the subject matter for which he is best known, the coastal landscapes and the lives of fisher folk and their work on the margins of the sea.

He was elected R.A. in 1860. From 1856 to 1902 he continued to paint and exhibit his "Hookscapes," as they came to be known, regularly every year. He sought out picturesque fishing villages, preferably ones that had not been "discovered" and made popular; and every summer he travelled to such coastal locations as Johnshaven, Gardenstown, Portsoy and Findochtie in Scotland, Hope Cove and Hallsands in Devon, and Sennen, St. Ives, and Mullion in Cornwall.

Caricature of James Clarke Hook by Sambourne

Caricature of James Clarke Hook
by Linley Sambourne in Punch, 1882.

He habitually painted the final canvas on site, en plein air, and invented an easel that was readily adaptable to rough terrain and uneven surfaces, which was marketed as "the Hook Easel." After his summer travels, he would return to his country home (initially Hambledon and Witley in Surrey, and then the beautiful estate in Churt that he called Silverbeck), and put the finishing touches to the paintings painted on location. The signature and date would come late in the process; so that the date normally matches the year of exhibition at the Royal Academy, rather than that of his trip to the location. He also continued to paint inland scenes, and many of these are set in the area of Churt and its surroundings.

James Clarke Hook exhibited some 200 paintings at the Royal Academy, besides others exhibited at the British Institute, the Grosvenor Gallery and elsewhere. His paintings are held at Tate Britain, The Guildhall Art Gallery, the Walker Gallery in Liverpool, and in the galleries of Aberdeen, Manchester, Dundee, and elsewhere. Many are in private hands. In the list of his works on this site, I have supplied information on the present location of each painting (where it is known), and also on the site where it was painted.

James Clarke and Rosalie Hook had two sons, both of whom became painters: Allan James Hook (1853-1946) and Bryan Hook (1856-1925). Allan painted marine scenes, like his father, and in the early twentieth century emigrated with his family to Canada; Bryan is best known for his bird and animal subjects, and for several exhibited works set in Kenya, where he bought land for some of his children.