//Two views of Robert Hughes, London, 1967.//
Sad to note the death yesterday of the great journalist and author Robert Hughes.
I made passing reference to Hughes here only last week, in relation to his appearance in the 1967 documentary Three Swings On A Pendulum.
Involvement in that curio was mere play to the greatest art critic of his generation, whose The Shock Of The New is of course mandatory reading (I’d add his The Art Of Australia to that category).
Hughes’ affecting memoir Things I Didn’t Know (which details the terrible aftermath of a 1999 car accident) is a treasured present from Mrs G; for an alternative angle on this complex character, try and track down a copy of Jenny’ Kee’s own memoir, A Big Life, itself an inside view on what is sadly now a disappearing demi-monde.
Read The Melbourne Age obit for Hughes here.
Taken from this post:
Robert Hughes 1938-2012
One Response to Robert Hughes 1938-2012
Albeit he was a self-publicist, Hughes made art come alive on the page and wasn’t afraid to say the emperor (or Jeff Koons) was starkers. The Shock Of The New and the essays in Nothing If Not Critical comprise some of the best critical writing of the last 50 years. Shame his last book (on Rome) was eviscerated.