James Clarke Hook RA was an English painter and etcher of marine, genre and historical scenes, and landscapes.

Hook was born in London, the son of James Hook, a draper and one time Judge of the Mixed Commission Court in 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. Still in his youth, he also had some advice by John Jackson and John Constable.

In 1836, Hook was admitted as a student to the Royal Academy, London, where he worked for three years. His first picture, called The Hard Task, was exhibited in 1839, and represented a girl helping her sister with a lesson. In 1842, Hook's second exhibited work was a portrait of Master J. Finch Smith. In 1844 he was represented at the exhibition at Westminster Hall with a design called "Satan in Paradise" to compete for the fresco decorations of the new Palace of Westminster but was not selected or won a prize. 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.