Hogarth's House: free Hogarth Prize show ends 6 September

There are just over three weeks left to see the first Hogarth Prize exhibition at Hogarth’s House on Hogarth Lane, and it costs nothing. Seventy shortlisted works by 56 artists are hanging in the house until Sunday 6 September, chosen from more than 1,500 submissions to a prize Hounslow Council launched in February and says is the first of its kind run by a London council.

The winner has already been announced. Dr Adam Perchard took the inaugural prize on 28 July for a work called Leviathan, winning £3,000 and a solo show at the house in spring 2027. “As a self-taught artist, it means the world for my work to be recognised by such a distinguished museum,” they said in the council’s announcement. “Hogarth has always been a big hero of mine. I love his wit and his sparkling satire, but also his capacity for beauty.”

One prize is still open, and you decide it

The £500 Visitors’ Choice Award has not been given out yet. Every visitor to the exhibition can vote for a favourite work, and the award goes in the final week of the run to whichever artist collects the most votes. That is the practical reason to go before 6 September rather than after: the main judging is done, but this part of it is not.

The judging panel for the main award was the gallerist and artist Robyn Graham, the painter Hero Johnson RP, and the artist and prize coordinator Steven King. They picked Leviathan for its technical skill and its engagement with cultural conversation, according to the council. The shortlist runs across painting, printmaking, photography, drawing and mixed media, with artists from London, Bristol, Edinburgh, Belfast, Plymouth, Falmouth and Dundee.

Planning the visit

Hogarth’s House is at Hogarth Lane, Great West Road, W4 2QN, beside the Hogarth Roundabout. It is open noon to 5pm Tuesday to Sunday and bank holiday Mondays, with last entry at 4.45pm, and entry is free. That means Monday 31 August is an opening day, and the last day of the show, Sunday 6 September, is a normal noon to 5pm day.

Getting there without a car is easier than the address suggests. The house lists Turnham Green station on the District line at about 20 minutes’ walk and Chiswick station at about 25, while the 190 and 533 buses stop in Burlington Lane about five minutes away. Step free access to the site is through the double gates and the lobby, and there is an accessible toilet there, but the first floor of the house is reached only by a narrow staircase of 12 steps with low headroom.

The house is worth the trip on its own account. It was built between 1713 and 1717 and was the country home of William Hogarth from 1749 until his death in 1764, it is run by Hounslow Council, and the council says it holds the largest display of his work in the UK. That is the point the prize is making: contemporary work by living artists, hung in the rooms of an artist who spent his career satirising the society around him.

What it means for you

If you have school-age children, note that the prize also ran a schools exhibition, with pupils’ work on artist postcards shown at the house for a month before the finalists went up. Whether that becomes an annual fixture is not yet published, and nor are dates for a second round of the main prize, which the council describes as being in its inaugural year. If it does return, the terms to expect are the ones it set this time: entry cost £16 for one work and £24 for two, and it was open to amateur, emerging and established artists aged 18 and over from anywhere in the UK, in any medium as long as the work hangs on a wall.

One small thing to ignore: the council’s original launch notice called the closing date “Thursday 6 September”. The date is right and the day is wrong. Sunday 6 September is the last day.

More free and low cost things to do locally are on our things to do in Chiswick page.