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Robert Hughes (critic)

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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.

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, still considered an important work. It was published in 1966. 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, broadcast Hughes's 1980 television series on the development of modern art since the Impressionists. It was accompanied by a book of the same name; its combination of insight, wit and accessibility are still widely praised.

Hughes published The Fatal Shore 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 1997 television series American Visions 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 detailed in the next section. Hughes's 2002 documentary on Francisco Goya, Goya: Crazy Like a Genius, was broadcast on the first night of the BBC's domestic digital service. 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 of a brain tumour in 2003. She lived outside Sydney near her son, Danton (30 September 1967 – 2002), who was named for the French revolutionary Georges Danton, and the only child from her marriage to Hughes. Danton Hughes became a talented sculptor and furniture maker and lived in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. In 2002, at age 34, Danton took his own life by gassing himself with his car in the garage after being left alone for week by his partner, Jenny Kee, over Easter Holiday as Danton was suffering depression. Kee was at a spa following an argument with Danton because he wanted to pursue a higher level of education at Sydney University funded by his father. 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."

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 . Western Australian 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 second wife, the American artist and art director, Doris Downes, well known for her paintings of natural history. He credited her on many occasions, in both his writings and public interviews, for his survival following his near fatal car crash. She flew to Australia to be with him. He said, "Apart from being a talented painter, she saved my life, my emotional stability, such as it is." He had two stepchildren by Downes's previous marriage.

Death

Hughes died at the Calvary Hospital in the Bronx, New York, on 6 August 2012 following a long illness, with his wife at his bedside. He was 74 years old. 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

Hughes received the Frank Jewett Mather Award for art criticism in 1982 and 1985, given by the College Art Association of America.

Publications (alphabetical order)

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

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 on updating The Shock Of The New
  3. 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)
  4. Hughes R The curse of free love TimesOnline (UK) 2006 (Being an extract from his book Things I Didn't Know, Vintage (2006)
  5. "Crash Severely Injures Art Critic Robert Hughes". Articles.chicagotribune.com. 30 May 1999. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
  6. Jackie Rothenberg (30 May 1999). "Art Critic Robert Hughes Seriously Hurt In Crash". NYPOST.com. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
  7. "The World Today Archive: Robert Hughes' trial in Broome". Abc.net.au. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
  8. Hughes, Robert (2006). Things I Didn't Know: A Memoir. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. pp. 3–33. ISBN 9780307385987.
  9. Jackie Rothenberg (6 June 1999). "Drug Link Eyed For Men Who Struck Hughes' Car". NYPOST.com. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
  10. "After legal jousting and vitriol, Hughes fined in absentia for car crash". smh.com.au. 15 April 2003. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
  11. Statement from Malcolm Turnbull MP, 7 August 2012
  12. "Australian art critic Robert Hughes dies aged 74". Retrieved 7 August 2012.
  13. Randy Kennedy (6 August 2012). "Robert Hughes, art critic whose writing was elegant and contentious, dies at 74". New York Times. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
  14. "Awards". The College Art Association. Retrieved 11 October 2010.
  15. It's an Honour: Officer of the Order of Australia

External links

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