Hughes, Robert

Hughes, Robert (1938– ). Australian art critic, resident in the USA since 1970. He was born in Sydney, where he studied architecture at the University, and he became art critic to the fortnightly magazine Observer when he was still an undergraduate. In 1964 he moved to Europe, living first in Italy and then from 1966 in London, where he wrote for the Sunday Times and other publications. Since 1970 he has been art critic of Time magazine in New York. His books include The Art of Australia (1966, revised 1970), Heaven and Hell in Western Art (1969), Lucian Freud: Paintings (1988), and Nothing if not Critical: Selected Essays on Art and Artists (1990). He writes mainly on 20th-century art and has a richly deserved reputation as a witty and penetrating observer of the contemporary art scene. He has also made films for television, notably two impressive series, The Shock of the New (1980) and American Visions (1996), both with accompanying books of the same title. In his work for television he has received the kind of praise previously enjoyed by Kenneth Clark, but Hughes's approach is very different—forceful rather than suave.