Post #520208 by martian-tiki on Fri, Mar 26, 2010 8:00 PM

On 2010-03-26 06:17, Dr. Zarkov wrote:
In the spirit of some on this board I hereby declare this man's art is deemed to be "Not Tiki." These works are far too tasteful.

Poor Hodges when he was alive was dismissed by art critics at the time as well.
An abridged wiki article....

Hodges accompanied Cook to the Pacific as the expedition's artist in 1772-1775.

Most of the large-scale landscape oil paintings from his Pacific travels for which Hodges is best known were also produced after his return to London; he received a salary from the Admiralty for the purposes of completing them. These paintings are especially notable as being some of the first landscapes to use light and shadow for dramatic purposes. Hodges' use of light as a compositional element in its own right was a marked departure from the classical landscape tradition. Contemporary art critics complained that his use of light and color contrasts gave his paintings a rough and unfinished appearance.

In late 1794, Hodges opened an exhibition of his own works in London that included two large paintings called The Effects of Peace and The Effects of War. In late January, 1795, with Britain engaged in the War of the First Coalition against Revolutionary France and feelings running high, the exhibition was visited by Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, the second son of King George III. The Duke took offense at the political nature of Hodges' paintings and ordered the exhibition closed; this Royal censure effectively ended Hodges' career as a painter.

Hodges retired to Devon and became involved with a bank which failed during the banking crisis of March, 1797. On 6 March of that year, he died from what was officially recorded as "gout in the stomach", but which was also rumored to be suicide from an overdose of laudanum.