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Robert Studley Forrest Hughes AO (28 July 1938 – 6 August 2012) was an Australian-born art critic, writer and maker of television documentaries.

Early life

Hughes was born in Sydney, Australia in 1938. His father and paternal grandfather were prominent lawyers. Hughes's father, Geoffrey Forrest Hughes, was an aviator in the First World War, with later careers as a solicitor and company director. Geoffrey Hughes died from lung cancer when Robert was aged 12. His mother was Margaret Eyre Sealy, née Vidal. His older brother, Thomas Eyre Forrest Hughes, is an Australian lawyer and a former Attorney-General of Australia.

Growing up in Rose Bay, Hughes was educated at St Ignatius' College, Riverview before going on to study arts and then architecture at the University of Sydney. At the university, Hughes associated with the Sydney "Push" – a group of artists, writers, intellectuals and drinkers. Among the group were Germaine Greer and Clive James. Hughes, an aspiring artist and poet, abandoned his university endeavours to become first a cartoonist and then an art critic for the Sydney periodical The Observer, edited by Donald Horne. Around this time he wrote a history of Australian painting, titled The Art of Australia, published in 1966 and still considered an important work. Hughes was also briefly involved in the original Sydney version of Oz magazine, and wrote art criticism for The Nation and The Sunday Mirror.

Career

Hughes left Australia for Europe in 1964, living for a time in Italy before settling in London (1965) where he wrote for The Spectator, The Daily Telegraph, The Times and The Observer, among others, and contributed to the London version of Oz. In 1970 he obtained the position of art critic for TIME magazine and he moved to New York, where he quickly established himself as an influential art critic. In 1975, along with Don Brady, he provided the narration for the film Protected, a documentary showing what life was like for Indigenous Australians on Palm Island.

Hughes and Harold Hayes were recruited in 1978 to anchor the new ABC News (US) newsmagazine 20/20. His only broadcast, on 6 June 1978, proved so controversial that, less than a week later, ABC News president Roone Arledge terminated the contracts of Hughes and Hayes, replacing them with veteran TV host Hugh Downs. The BBC broadcast The Shock of the New (1980), made in association with the German producer Reiner Moritz, on the development of modern art since the Impressionists. John O'Connor in The New York Times of the series series that: "Agree or disagree, you will not be bored. Mr. Hughes has a disarming way of being provocative". It was accompanied by a book with the same title.

Hughes The Fatal Shore followed in 1987. A study of the British penal colonies and early European settlement of Australia, it became an international best-seller. During the late 1990s, he was a prominent supporter of the Australian Republican Movement. Hughes provided criticism on the work of artist Robert Crumb in parts of the 1994 film Crumb, calling Crumb "the American Bruegel". His television series American Visions (1997) reviewed the history of American art since the Revolution. Australia: Beyond the Fatal Shore (2000) was a series musing on modern Australia and Hughes's relationship with it. During production, Hughes was involved in the near-fatal road accident (see below). Hughes's documentary on Francisco Goya, Goya: Crazy Like a Genius (2002)', was broadcast on the first night of the new British domestic digital service, BBC Four. He created a one hour update to The Shock of the New. Titled The New Shock of the New, the program aired first in 2004. He published the first volume of his memoirs, Things I Didn’t Know, in 2006.

Personal life

Hughes met his first wife, Danne Emerson, in London in 1967. They divorced in 1981 in New York. She died in 2003. Their son Danton, who was named for the French revolutionary Georges Danton, was the only child from her marriage to Hughes. Danton Hughes became a sculptor and furniture maker and lived in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. In 2002, at age 34, Danton took his own life. Hughes later wrote: "I miss Danton and always will, although we had been miserably estranged for years and the pain of his loss has been somewhat blunted by the passage of time".

Hughes met his second wife, Victoria Whistler, at a speaking engagement in San Francisco. They were married from 1981 until 1996.

In 1999, Hughes was involved in a near-fatal car accident south of Broome, Western Australia. He was returning from a fishing trip and driving on the wrong side of the road when he collided head on with another car carrying three occupants. He was trapped in the car for three hours before being airlifted to Perth in a critical condition. The Western Australia Police subsequently laid several charges against him relating to the accident. Two of the occupants of the other car were charged with trying to blackmail Hughes over the accident. Hughes recounts the story of his accident and recovery in the first chapter of his 2006 memoir Things I Didn't Know.

In a 2000 court hearing Hughes' defence barrister alleged that the occupants of the other car had been transporting illicit drugs at the time of the accident and were at fault. Hughes eventually pleaded guilty to the charge of dangerous driving causing grievous bodily harm in 2003 and was fined $2,500.

In 2001, Hughes wed his third wife, the American artist and art director, Doris Downes. He credited her for his survival following his near fatal car crash, saying "Apart from being a talented painter, she saved my life, my emotional stability, such as it is". He had two stepchildren from Downes's previous marriage.

Death

Hughes died at the Calvary Hospital in The Bronx, New York, on 6 August 2012, with his wife at his bedside. Hughes is survived by two stepsons, Freeborn Garrettson Jewett IV and Fielder Douglas Jewett; his brothers, Thomas and Geoffrey Hughes; a sister, Constance Crisp, and many nieces and nephews.

Honours

• 1982 (1982): Frank Jewett Mather Award for art criticism, given by the College Art Association of America.
• 1985 (1985): second Frank Jewett Mather Award
• 1987 (1987): named New York Public Library Literary Lion
• 1988 (1988): named recipient of the American Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award.
• 1988 (1988): W. H. Smith Literary Award for The Fatal Shore
• 1991 (1991): Officer of the Order of Australia
• 1995 (1995): granted an Honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Melbourne
• 1996 (1996): elected to membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• 1997 (1997): elected one of 40 "Living National Treasures" after a general vote conducted by the Australian media on behalf of the National Trust of Australia
• 2000 (2000): London Sunday Times Writer of the Year (previous recipients of the award including Anthony Burgess, Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, and Salman Rushdie)
• 2007 (2007): New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Douglas Stewart Prize for non-fiction for Things I Didn't Know: a Memoir
• 2009 (2009): "The Mona Lisa Curse" - Winner of the 2009 Grierson Award for Best Documentary on the Arts, Oxford Film and Television for Channel 4, UK
• 2009 (2009): International Emmy Award - Arts Programming, "The Mona Lisa Curse", Oxford Film and Television for Channel 4, UK

Publications

• Hughes, Robert (1965). Donald Friend. Sydney: Edwards and Shaw. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask= ignored (|author-mask= suggested) (help)
• Hughes, Robert (1966). The Art of Australia. ISBN 0-14-020935-2. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask= ignored (|author-mask= suggested) (help)
• Hughes, Robert (1968). Heaven and Hell in Western Art. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 978-0-297-17671-8. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask= ignored (|author-mask= suggested) (help)
• Hughes, Robert (1987). The Fatal Shore. Alfred A. Knopf Inc. ISBN 0-394-50668-5. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask= ignored (|author-mask= suggested) (help)
• Hughes, Robert (1989). Lucian Freud Paintings. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-27535-1. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask= ignored (|author-mask= suggested) (help)
• Hughes, Robert (1990). Frank Auerbach. Thames and Hudson. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask= ignored (|author-mask= suggested) (help)
• Hughes, Robert (1991). Nothing if Not Critical: Selected Essays on Art and Artists (Including 'SoHoiad'). London: The Harvill Press. ISBN 1-86046-859-4. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask= ignored (|author-mask= suggested) (help)
• Hughes, Robert (1991). The Shock of the New: Art and the Century of Change (updated and enlarged edition). Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0-500-27582-3. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask= ignored (|author-mask= suggested) (help)
• Hughes, Robert (1992). Barcelona. Vintage. ISBN 0-394-58027-3. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask= ignored (|author-mask= suggested) (help)
• Hughes, Robert (1993). Culture of Complaint. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-507676-1. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask= ignored (|author-mask= suggested) (help)
• Hughes, Robert (1998). A Jerk on One End: Reflections of a Mediocre Fisherman. ISBN 0-345-42283-X. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask= ignored (|author-mask= suggested) (help)
• Hughes, Robert (1998). American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America. London: The Harvill Press. ISBN 1-86046-533-1. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask= ignored (|author-mask= suggested) (help)
• Hughes, Robert (2001). Barcelona: the Great Enchantress. ISBN 0-7922-6794-X. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask= ignored (|author-mask= suggested) (help) (Condensed version of Barcelona)
• Hughes, Robert (2004). Goya. Vintage. ISBN 0-09-945368-1. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask= ignored (|author-mask= suggested) (help)
• Hughes, Robert (2006). Things I Didn’t Know: A Memoir. Alfred A. Knopf Inc. ISBN 1-4000-4444-8. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask= ignored (|author-mask= suggested) (help)
• Hughes, Robert (2011). Rome: A Cultural, Visual and Personal History. New York: Knopf. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask= ignored (|author-mask= suggested) (help)

Biography

• Anderson, Patricia, Robert Hughes: The Australian Years, Pandora Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-9579142-2-3
• Britain, Ian, "Once An Australian: Journeys with Barry Humphries, Clive James, Germaine Greer and Robert Hughes", Oxford University Press, 1997 ISBN 0195537424

Notes

1. "Australian art critic Robert Hughes dies, aged 74". Bbc.co.uk. 14 April 2003. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
2. "'Robert Hughes was Australia's Dante,' says his friend Peter Carey". The Guardian. 7 August 2012. Retrieved 18 September 2012.
3. ^ John O'Connor "A Provocative New Series on Modern Art", New York Times, 11 January 1981
4. Robert Hughes on updating The Shock Of The New
5. Published on Saturday, 14 October 2006 (14 October 2006). "Things I didn't know - Scotsman.com". Living.scotsman.com. Retrieved 7 August 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
6. Hughes R The curse of free love TimesOnline (UK) 2006 (Being an extract from his book Things I Didn't Know, Vintage (2006)
7. The Telegraph, 7 August 2012
8. "Crash Severely Injures Art Critic Robert Hughes". Articles.chicagotribune.com. 30 May 1999. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
9. Rothenberg, Jackie (30 May 1999). "Art Critic Robert Hughes Seriously Hurt In Crash". NYPOST.com. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
10. "The World Today Archive: Robert Hughes' trial in Broome". Abc.net.au. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
11. Hughes, Robert (2006). Things I Didn't Know: A Memoir. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. pp. 3–33. ISBN 9780307385987.
12. Jackie Rothenberg (6 June 1999). "Drug Link Eyed For Men Who Struck Hughes' Car". NYPOST.com. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
13. "After legal jousting and vitriol, Hughes fined in absentia for car crash". smh.com.au. 15 April 2003. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
14. The art of conversation, The St. Petersburg Times Floridian, 9 November 2003
15. Kennedy, Randy (6 August 2012). "Robert Hughes, art critic whose writing was elegant and contentious, dies at 74". New York Times. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
16. ^ "Awards". The College Art Association. Retrieved 11 October 2010.
17. It's an Honour: Officer of the Order of Australia

External links

• Robert Hughes at IMDb
• Robert Hughes at Random House Australia
• Valerie Lawson, Sydney Morning Herald, "After legal jousting and vitriol, Hughes fined in absentia for car crash" (2003)
• Eric Ellis, The Bulletin, July 2002, "Shock of the Broome"
• 1987 audio interview of Robert Hughes by Don Swaim of CBS Radio, RealAudio
• The New York Times Magazine – Food; Tuna Surprise (A fisherman's journey to Costa Rica)
• The Times Online, "The curse of free love", excerpt from Things I Didn’t Know: A Memoir. (20 August 2006)
• The Nation - Christopher Hitchens column on Things I Didn't Know: A Memoir. (25 September 2006)
• Enough Rope, ABC TV Interview - Andrew Denton and Robert Hughes. (13 November 2006)
• Interview with Hughes on CBC Radio's Writers and Company (January 2008)]
• International Herald Tribune- Joyce Wadler of the New York Times- at Home with Robert Hughes and Doris Downes
• Booknotes interview with Hughes on American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America, 20 July 1997.
• Obituary in the Sydney Morning Herald: "Robert Hughes turned criticism into an art"
• Obituary in The Independent by Marcus Williamson

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• Australian republicans
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