Robert Hughes

Hughes was married to Danne Emerson from 1967-1981. The couple met in London and explored the counterculture, of the 1960s, of exploring drug use and sexual freedom together. They had a son Danton Hughes.

He got married for the second time to Victoria Whistler in California. They remained married from 1981-1996.

Hughes third marriage took place in 2001, to Doris Downes, an American artist and art director. The couple remained married until his death. He became stepfather to Downes’ sons - Freeborn Garrettson Jewett IV and Fielder Douglas Jewett.

Robert Hughes was born on 28 July 1938, in Sydney to Geoffrey Forrest Hughes and Margaret Eyre Sealy. His father was a pilot in the WWI and a lawyer. He died of lung cancer when Hughes was only 12 years old.

While he was growing up, Hughes was expected to become a lawyer as his father and grandfather both were prominent lawyers. He attended St. Ignatius College in Riverview, Australia, and later attended the University of Sydney.

At the University of Sydney Hughes pursued art and architecture, but dropped out of college soon after to take up a job as a cartoonist for the periodical, ‘The Observer’. He was made the art critic at the magazine.

While still working as a art critic with ‘The Observer’, Hughes wrote a piece on the history of Australian painting—‘The Art of Australia’ in 1966. He also contributed to the ‘Oz’ magazine, ‘The Nation’, and ‘the Sunday Mirror’.

Around the same time, he travelled to Europe and settled permanently in London in 1965. It was in London that he wrote for ‘The Spectator’, ‘The Daily Telegraph’, ‘The Times’’, the London-version of ‘Oz’ and ‘The Observer’.

In 1970, Hughes moved to New York, when he was recruited as an art critic by the ‘TIME’ magazine—which he described as a ‘shot in the dark’ both by him and the magazine.

Things went well at the ‘TIME’ and Hughes was hired as a commentator on ABC’s news magazine program ‘20/20’ in 1978. But after the recording of first tape, he was fired and replaced by veteran TV host Hugh Downs.

In 1980, he co-produced, with German producer Reiner Moritz and Lorna Pegram, BBC eight-part series ‘The Shock of the New’. It was based on his book with the same title; the series looked into the development of Modern art.

‘The Shock of the New’, created by Hughes in 1980 and produced by BBC, is Hughes’ most prominent work. It was based on the development of modern art since the Impressionists and was accompanied by a book with the same title.