NLA image of person
Robert Hughes Robert Hughes i(A32267 works by) (a.k.a. Robert Studley Forrest Hughes)
Born: Established: 28 Jul 1938 Sydney, New South Wales, ; Died: Ceased: 6 Aug 2012 New York (City), New York (State),
c
United States of America (USA),
c
Americas,

Gender: Male
Expatriate assertion
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

BiographyHistory

Robert Hughes was educated at St. Ignatius College, Sydney, and studied arts and architecture at Sydney University, during which time he made a name for himself within the Sydney 'Push' - a progressive group of artists, writers, intellectuals and drinkers that included Clive James and Germaine Greer. After working in the field of art criticism with the Sydney Observer and the Nation, he went to Britain in the 1960s and as a freelance writer continued his journalistic career specialising in art criticism for newspapers such as the Spectator, the Telegraph, the Times and the Observer.

In 1970 he became art critic for Time Magazine and established himself as an internationally renowned and influential art critic. As a reviewer, Hughes has been the only art critic to twice win America's most coveted award for art criticism (in 1982 and 1985), the Frank Jewett Mather Award, given by the College Art Association of America. In 1988 Hughes was named recipient of the American Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award. In 1993, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

As an art critic he published extensively and his books have been translated into many languages. Some of his publications include The Art of Australia: a Critical Survey (1966), Heaven and Hell in Western Art (1968), Nothing If Not Critical: Selected Essays (1990), Barcelona (1991), Culture of Complaint (1993), American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America (1997) and Rome (2011). During his lifetime he made more than twenty television documentaries on the visual arts. The BBC eight-part television series on modern art, The Shock of the New, was critically acclaimed, as was the publication of a book based on the series.

Most Referenced Works

Notes

  • Robert Hughes was included in the Bulletin's '100 Most Influential Australians' list in 2006.

Personal Awards

1997 Australian National Living Treasure
1991 Order of Australia Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) General Division For service to art and to the promotion of Australian culture.

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon The Fatal Shore : A History of the Transportation of Convicts to Australia, 1787-1868 London : Collins Harvill , 1987 Z1065904 1987 single work non-fiction 'Traces the fate of the 160,000 men, women and children transported between the dispatch of the First Fleet in May 1787 to Botany Bay, and the arrival of the latest convict ship in 1868 in Western Australia.' (Source: Trove)
1987 winner The Age Book of the Year Award Non-Fiction Prize
1987 winner Duff-Cooper Award (UK)
Last amended 7 Aug 2012 14:33:49
Other mentions of "" in AustLit:
    X