Robert Hughes (critic)

{{Infobox person

| name = Robert Hughes

| honorific_suffix = AO

| image = Robert Hughes 1986.jpg

| caption = Hughes in 1986

| birth_name = Robert Studley Forrest Hughes

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1938|07|28|df=y}}

| birth_place = Sydney, Australia

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2012|08|06|1938|07|28|df=y}}

| death_place = New York City, U.S.

| education = Saint Ignatius' College, Riverview

| alma_mater = University of Sydney

| occupation = {{Plainlist|

Art critic
Writer
Television presenter

}}

| spouse = {{plainlist |

{{marriage|Danne Emerson|1967|1981|reason=divorce}}
{{marriage|Victoria Whistler|1981|1996|reason=divorce}}
{{marriage|Doris Downes|2001}}

}}

| children = 1

| parents = {{plainlist |

Geoffrey Forrest Hughes
Margaret Vidal

}}

| relatives = {{plainlist |

Sir Thomas Hughes (grandfather)
Tom Hughes (brother)
Lucy Turnbull (niece)

}}

Robert Studley Forrest Hughes AO (28 July 1938{{spaced ndash}}6 August 2012) was one of the most notable Australian-born art critics, writer, and producer of television documentaries. He was described in 1997 by Robert Boynton of The New York Times as "the most famous art critic in the world."{{cite news|last=Kennedy|first=Randy|date=6 August 2012|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/07/arts/robert-hughes-art-critic-whose-writing-was-elegant-and-contentious-dies-at-74.html?pagewanted=all|title=Robert Hughes, Art Critic Whose Writing Was Elegant and Contentious, Dies at 74|work=The New York Times|access-date=22 February 2013}}

Hughes earned widespread recognition for his book and television series on modern art, The Shock of the New, and for his longstanding position as art critic with TIME magazine. He is also known for his best seller The Fatal Shore (1986), a study of the British convict system in early Australian history. Known for his contentious critiques of art and artists, Hughes was generally conservative in his tastes, although he did not belong to a particular philosophical camp. His writing was noted for its power and elegance.

Early life

Hughes was born in Sydney, in 1938. His father and paternal grandfather were lawyers. Hughes's father, Geoffrey Forrest Hughes, was a pilot in the First World War, with later careers as a solicitor and company director. He died from lung cancer when Robert was aged 12. His mother was Margaret Eyre Sealy, née Vidal. His elder brother was Australian politician Thomas Eyre Forrest Hughes,Duggan, Paul. [https://pauldugganbarrister.com/2012/08/09/robert-hughes-a-lawyers-farewell/ Robert Hughes—a lawyer's farewell] at pauldugganbarrister.com, 9 August 2012. Retrieved 1 March 2017 the father of former Sydney Lord Mayor Lucy Turnbull, the wife of former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. He had another brother Geoffrey and one sister, Constance.

Growing up in Rose Bay, Sydney,{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/07/robert-hughes-by-peter-carey|title='Robert Hughes was Australia's Dante,' says his friend Peter Carey|work=The Guardian|date=7 August 2012|access-date=22 February 2013}} Hughes was educated at Saint Ignatius' College, Riverview before studying arts and then architecture at the University of Sydney. At university, he associated with the Sydney "Push" – a group of artists, writers, intellectuals and drinkers. Among the group were Germaine Greer and Clive James.{{cite magazine|url=http://www.robertboynton.com/articleDisplay.php?article_id=1532|title=The Lives of Robert Hughes|last=Boynton|first=Robert S.|date=12 May 1997|magazine=The New Yorker|access-date=22 February 2013|archive-date=22 October 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081022222316/http://www.robertboynton.com/articleDisplay.php?article_id=1532|url-status=dead}}

Career

= As an art critic =

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.{{cite web|url=http://home.vicnet.net.au/~abr/Current/Rose%20review.htm|title=Up on Stilts|last=Rose|first=Peter|author-link=Peter Rose (poet)|work=Australian Book Review|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081022081732/http://home.vicnet.net.au/~abr/Current/Rose%20review.htm|archive-date=22 October 2008|url-status=dead|access-date=22 February 2013}} Hughes was briefly involved in the original Sydney version of Oz magazine and wrote art criticism for Nation and the Sunday Mirror.Patricia Maunder, [https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/robert-hughes-turned-criticism-into-an-art-20120807-23r1m.html 'Robert Hughes turned criticism into an art,'] The Sydney Morning Herald 7 August 2012

In 1961, while still a student, Hughes was caught up in controversy when a number of his classmates demonstrated in a student newspaper article that he had published plagiarised poetry by Terence Tiller and others, and a drawing by Leonard Baskin.Coombs A Sex and Anarchy: The life and death of the Sydney Push Viking Penguin Books (Australia, 1996) pp 158-9

Hughes left Australia for Europe in 1964, living for a time in Italy before settling in London in 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 was appointed art critic for TIME magazine and moved to New York, where he soon became an influential voice.

In 1966 Hughes published a history of Australian painting titled The Art of Australia, still considered an important work.

Hughes wrote and narrated the BBC eight-part series The Shock of the New (1980) on the development of modern art since the Impressionists. It was produced and in part directed by Lorna Pegram.{{Cite ODNB|title=Pegram [née Woods], Lorna Gladys Hurst (1926–1993), television producer and novelist|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-53134|access-date=2020-10-03|year = 2004|language=en|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/53134}} It was accompanied by a book with the same title. John O'Connor of The New York Times said, "Agree or disagree, you will not be bored. Mr. Hughes has a disarming way of being provocative."{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/11/arts/tv-view-a-provocative-new-series-on-modern-art-by-john-o-connor.html?pagewanted=all|title=A Provocative New Series on Modern Art|last=O'Connor|first=John|date=11 January 1981|work=The New York Times|access-date=22 February 2013}}

{{external media| float = right| video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?86445-1/american-visions Booknotes interview with Hughes on American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America, July 20, 1997], C-SPAN}}

Hughes's TV series American Visions (1997) reviewed the history of American art since the Revolution. Hughes's documentary on Francisco Goya, Goya: Crazy Like a Genius (2002), was broadcast on the first night of the new British domestic digital service, BBC Four.Jason Deans, [https://www.theguardian.com/media/2002/mar/04/broadcasting2 'BBC4 suffers ratings tragedy,'] The Guardian 5 March 2002. He created a one-hour update to The Shock of the New, titled The New Shock of the New, which first aired in 2004.{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2004/jun/30/art1|title=Robert Hughes on updating The Shock of the New|author=Robert Hughes|date=30 June 2004|work=The Guardian|access-date=31 December 2012}} He published the first volume of his memoirs, Things I Didn’t Know, in 2006.{{cite web|url=http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/books/features/things-i-didn-t-know-1-721027|title=Things I didn't know: Book review|date=14 October 2006|work=The Scotsman|access-date=22 February 2013}}

Following his death, Jonathan Jones wrote in The Guardian that Hughes "was simply the greatest art critic of our time and it will be a long while before we see his like again. He made criticism look like literature. He also made it look morally worthwhile. He lent a nobility to what can often seem a petty way to spend your life. Hughes could be savage, but he was never petty. There was purpose to his lightning bolts of condemnation".{{cite web |last=Jones |first=Jonathan |author-link=Jonathan Jones (journalist) |date=7 August 2012 |title=Robert Hughes: the greatest art critic of our time |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2012/aug/07/robert-hughes-greatest-art-critic |website=The Guardian |location=London |access-date=20 September 2023}}

= As a journalist and historian =

Hughes and Harold Hayes were recruited in 1978 to anchor the new ABC News (US) newsmagazine 20/20. Their only broadcast, on 6 June 1978, proved so controversial that, less than a week later, ABC News president Roone Arledge terminated the contracts of both men, replacing them with veteran TV host Hugh Downs.

Hughes's book The Fatal Shore followed 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, Hughes was a prominent supporter of the Australian Republican Movement.{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19158897|title=Australian art critic Robert Hughes dies, aged 74|work=BBC News|date=14 April 2003|access-date=22 February 2013}} 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 a near-fatal road accident.

Personal life

Hughes met his first wife, Danne Emerson, in London in 1967. Together they became involved in the counterculture of the 1960s, exploring drug use and sexual freedom.{{cite web|url=http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/robert-hughes-turned-criticism-into-an-art-20120807-23r1m.html|title=Robert Hughes turned criticism into an art|last=Maunder|first=Patricia|date=7 August 2012|work=The Sydney Morning Herald|access-date=22 February 2013}} They divorced in 1981; she died of a brain tumour in 2003.{{cite book|last=Hughes|first=Robert|title=Things I Didn't Know: A Memoir|year=2006|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|location=New York|isbn=9780307385987|page=296}} Their son, Danton, Hughes's only child, was named after the French revolutionary Georges Danton.{{cite web|url=http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/robert-hughes-made-high-art-accessible/story-e6frg8n6-1226444583742|title=Robert Hughes made high art accessible|date=7 August 2012|work=The Australian|access-date=22 February 2013}} Danton Hughes, a sculptor, committed suicide in April 2001; he was found by his partner, fashion designer Jenny Kee, with whom he had been in a long-term relationship. Robert 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".{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/robert-hughes-forthright-critic-who-transformed-the-public-perception-of-modern-art-8015623.html|title=Robert Hughes: Forthright critic who transformed the public perception of modern art|last=Williamson|first=Marcus| author-link = Marcus Williamson|date=8 August 2012|work=The Independent|access-date=22 February 2013}}

Hughes was married to his second wife, Victoria Whistler, from 1981 until their divorce in 1996.

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 critical condition.{{cite web|first=Jackie|last=Rothenberg|url=http://www.nypost.com/p/news/art_critic_robert_hughes_seriously_YKMdoMNtlTcPQn04m1t6MO|title=Art Critic Robert Hughes Seriously Hurt in Crash|publisher=New York Post|date=30 May 1999|access-date=22 February 2013}} Hughes was in a coma for five weeks after the crash. In a 2000 court hearing, Hughes's 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.{{cite web|first=Jackie|last= Rothenberg|url=http://www.nypost.com/p/news/drug_link_eyed_for_men_who_struck_Iol2L0hHTHI4j3LAA7e7sO|title=Drug Link Eyed For Men Who Struck Hughes's Car| publisher=New York Post|date=6 June 1999|access-date=7 August 2012}} In 2003 Hughes pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing bodily harm and was fined A$2,500.{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/2946409.stm|title=Art critic admits crash guilt|date=14 April 2003|work=BBC News|access-date=22 February 2013}} Hughes recounts the story of the accident and his recovery in the first chapter of his 2006 memoir Things I Didn't Know.{{cite book|last=Hughes|first=Robert|title=Things I Didn't Know: A Memoir|year=2006|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|location=New York|isbn=9780307385987|pages=3–33|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fTv2DJ5xfwwC&pg=PA3}}{{cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/art-obituaries/9458515/Robert-Hughes.html|title=Robert Hughes|date=7 August 2012|work=The Telegraph|access-date=22 February 2013}}

In 2001, Hughes wed his third wife, the American artist and art director Doris Downes. "Apart from being a talented painter, she saved my life, my emotional stability, such as it is", he said.{{cite web|url=http://www.sptimes.com/2003/11/09/Floridian/The_art_of_conversati.shtml|title=The art of conversation|work=St. Petersburg Times Floridian|date=9 November 2003|last=Bennett|first=Lennie|access-date=22 February 2013}}

Death

After a long illness, reportedly exacerbated by some 50 years of alcohol consumption, Hughes died at Calvary Hospital in The Bronx, New York City, on 6 August 2012, with his wife at his bedside. He was also survived by two stepsons from his wife's previous marriage, Freeborn Garrettson Jewett IV and Fielder Douglas Jewett; his brothers, Tom and Geoffrey Hughes; a sister, Constance Crisp; and many nieces and nephews.

Assessment

When The Shock of the New was proposed to the BBC, television programmers were sceptical that a journalist could properly follow the aristocratic tone of Kenneth Clark, whose Civilisation had been so successful.{{cite news|last=McNay|first=Michael|date=6 August 2012|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/07/robert-hughes|title=Robert Hughes obituary|work=The Guardian|access-date=17 March 2013}} The Shock of the New proved to be a popular and critical success: it has been assessed "much the best synoptic introduction to modern art ever written", taking as its premise the vitality gained by modern art when it ceded the need to replicate nature in favour of a more direct expression of human experience and emotion.{{cite magazine|last=Gopnik|first=Adam|date=7 August 2012|url=http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/08/postscript-robert-hughes.html|title=Postscript: Robert Hughes|magazine=The New Yorker|access-date=17 March 2013}} Hughes's explanations of modern art benefited from the coherence of his judgments, and were marked by his ability to summarise the essential qualities of his subject.

Whether positive or negative, his judgments were enthusiastic. He championed London painters like Frank Auerbach and Lucian Freud, helping to popularise the latter in the United States, and wrote with unabashed admiration for Francisco Goya and Pierre Bonnard.{{cite news|last=Lacayo|first=Richard|date=7 August 2012|url=https://entertainment.time.com/2012/08/07/the-art-of-being-critical-robert-hughes-1938-2012/|title=The Art of Being Critical: Robert Hughes (1938–2012)|work=Time magazine|access-date=17 March 2013}} By contrast Hughes was dismissive of much postmodernism and neo-expressionism, of painters like Julian Schnabel and David Salle, as well as the vicissitudes of a money-fuelled art market. While his reviews expressed antipathy for the avant-garde, he was beholden neither to any theory nor ideology, and managed to provoke both ends of the political spectrum.{{cite web|last1=Woodward|first1=Richard B.|title=The Most Feared Art Critic of His Time?|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390443537404577577300626558944|website=The Wall Street Journal|access-date=28 February 2017|date=8 August 2012|quote=Robert Hughes, who died on Monday at the age of 74, leaves behind many admirers but few followers. The most feared art critic of his time, as learned as he was readable, he cultivated no acolytes who aped his opinions and verbal mannerisms, as did Clement Greenberg and Pauline Kael, critics of equal stature. Despite his professorial air, Hughes spurned academia and it has responded in kind.}} He distrusted novelty in art for its own sake, yet he was also disdainful of a conservative aesthetic that avoided risk. He famously labelled contemporary Australian indigenous art as "the last great art movement of the 20th century".Henly, Susan Gough (6 November 2005). [https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/arts/06iht-aborigine.html?pagewanted=all "Powerful growth of Aboriginal art"], The New York Times Hughes, according to Adam Gopnik, was drawn to work that was rough-hewn, "craft attempted with passion."

Hughes's critical prose, vivid in both praise and indignation, has been compared to that of George Bernard Shaw, Jonathan Swift and William Shakespeare. "His prose", according to a colleague, "was lithe, muscular and fast as a bunch of fives. He was incapable of writing the jargon of the art world, and consequently was treated by its mandarins with fear and loathing." In different moods he could write that "Schnabel’s work is to painting what Stallone’s is to acting: a lurching display of oily pectorals," as well as conclude that Antoine Watteau "was a connoisseur of the unplucked string, the immobility before the dance, the moment that falls between departure and nostalgia."

Honours

{{Timeline-event|date=1982|event=Frank Jewett Mather Award for art criticism, given by the College Art Association of America.{{cite web|url=http://www.collegeart.org/awards/matherpast|title=Awards: Frank Jewett Mather Award|publisher=The College Art Association|access-date=22 February 2013}}}}
{{Timeline-event|date=1985|event=second Frank Jewett Mather Award}}
{{Timeline-event|date=1987|event=named New York Public Library Literary Lion}}
{{Timeline-event|date=1988|event=named recipient of the American Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award.}}
{{Timeline-event|date=1988|event=W. H. Smith Literary Award for The Fatal Shore}}
{{Timeline-event|date=1991|event=Officer of the Order of Australia{{cite web|url=https://honours.pmc.gov.au/honours/awards/869791|title=It's an Honour: Australia Celebrating Australians|publisher=Government of Australia|date=10 June 1991|access-date=22 February 2013}}}}
{{Timeline-event|date=1995|event=granted an Honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Melbourne}}
{{Timeline-event|date=1996|event=elected to membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences}}
{{Timeline-event|date=1997|event=elected one of 40 "Living National Treasures" after a general vote conducted by the Australian media on behalf of the National Trust of Australia}}
{{Timeline-event|date=2000|event=London Sunday Times Writer of the Year (previous recipients of the award including Anthony Burgess, Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, and Salman Rushdie)}}
{{Timeline-event|date=2006|event=Creu de Sant Jordi{{cite web|url=http://www20.gencat.cat/portal/site/portaldogc/menuitem.c973d2fc58aa0083e4492d92b0c0e1a0/?action=fitxa&documentId=428102&languageFitxa=ca_ES&newLang=ca_ES|title=DECRET 360/2006, de 19 de setembre, de concessió de la Creu de Sant Jordi de la Generalitat de Catalunya}}}}
{{Timeline-event|date=2007|event=New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Douglas Stewart Prize for non-fiction for Things I Didn't Know: a Memoir}}
{{Timeline-event|date=2009|event=The Mona Lisa Curse – Winner of the 2009 Grierson Award for Best Documentary on the Arts, Oxford Film and Television for Channel 4, UK}}
{{Timeline-event|date=2009|event=International Emmy Award – Arts Programming, The Mona Lisa Curse, Oxford Film and Television for Channel 4, UK}}

Bibliography

=Books=

{{cite book|last=Hughes|first=Robert|title=Donald Friend| year=1965|publisher= Edwards and Shaw|location= Sydney}}
{{cite book|last=Hughes|first=Robert|author-mask=1|title=The Art of Australia|year=1966|publisher=Penguin |isbn=0-14-020935-2}}
{{cite book|last=Hughes|first=Robert|author-mask=1|title=Heaven and Hell in Western Art|year=1968|publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson|location=London|isbn=978-0-297-17671-8}}
{{cite book|last=Hughes|first=Robert|author-mask=1|title=The Fatal Shore|year=1987|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf Inc.|isbn=0-394-50668-5}}
{{cite book|last=Hughes|first=Robert|author-mask=1|title=Lucian Freud Paintings|year=1989|publisher=Thames & Hudson|isbn=978-0-500-27535-1}}
{{cite book|last=Hughes|first=Robert|author-mask=1|title=Frank Auerbach|year=1990|publisher=Thames and Hudson}}
{{cite book|last=Hughes|first=Robert|author-mask=1|title=Nothing if Not Critical: Selected Essays on Art and Artists (Including 'SoHoiad')|year=1991|publisher=The Harvill Press|location=London|isbn=1-86046-859-4}}
{{cite book|last=Hughes|first=Robert|author-mask=1|title=The Shock of the New: Art and the Century of Change|year=1991| publisher=Thames and Hudson|isbn=0-500-27582-3|edition=updated and enlarged}}
{{cite book|last=Hughes|first=Robert|author-mask=1|title=Barcelona|year=1992|publisher=Vintage|isbn=0-394-58027-3|url=https://archive.org/details/barcelona00hugh}}
{{cite book|last=Hughes|first=Robert|author-mask=1|title=Culture of Complaint: The Fraying of America|year=1993|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-507676-1|url=https://archive.org/details/cultureofcomplai00hugh}}
{{cite book|last=Hughes|first=Robert|author-mask=1|title=A Jerk on One End: Reflections of a Mediocre Fisherman|year=1998|publisher=Ballantine Publishing |isbn=0-345-42283-X|url=https://archive.org/details/jerkononeendrefl00hugh}}
{{cite book|last=Hughes|first=Robert|author-mask=1|title=American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America|year=1998|publisher=The Harvill Press| location=London|isbn=1-86046-533-1}}
{{cite book|last=Hughes|first=Robert|author-mask=1|title=Barcelona: the Great Enchantress|year=2001|publisher=National Geographic |isbn=0-7922-6794-X }} (Condensed version of Barcelona)
{{cite book|last=Hughes|first=Robert|author-mask=1|title=Goya|year=2004|publisher=Vintage|isbn=0-09-945368-1}}
{{cite book|last=Hughes|first=Robert|author-mask=1|title=Things I Didn't Know: A Memoir|year=2006|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf Inc.|isbn=1-4000-4444-8|url=https://archive.org/details/thingsididntknow00hugh}}
{{cite book|last=Hughes|first=Robert|author-mask=1| title=Rome: A Cultural, Visual and Personal History|year=2011|publisher=Knopf|location=New York}}

=Critical studies and reviews=

{{cite journal |last=Stothard |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Stothard |date=September 2011 |title=The old BC/AD, BCE/CE : errors abound in Robert Hughes's history of Rome |journal=Australian Book Review |volume=334 |pages=8–9|url= https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/abr-online/archive/2011/58-september-2011/535-robert-hughes-rome}}

Biographies

Anderson, Patricia (2009). Robert Hughes: The Australian Years, Sydney: Pandora Press; {{ISBN|978-0-9579142-2-3}}
Britain, Ian (1997). Once An Australian: Journeys with Barry Humphries, Clive James, Germaine Greer and Robert Hughes, Oxford University Press; {{ISBN|0195537424}}

Notes

External links

{{IMDb name|id=0400889}}
[http://www.randomhouse.com.au/Authors/Default.aspx?Page=Author&ID=Hughes,%20Robert Robert Hughes at Random House Australia]
[http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/14/1050172542343.html Valerie Lawson, Sydney Morning Herald, "After legal jousting and vitriol, Hughes fined in absentia for car crash" (2003)]
[http://ericellis.com/archive/hughesbulletin.htm Eric Ellis, The Bulletin, July 2002, "Shock of the Broome"]
{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20070519121738/http://wiredforbooks.org/roberthughes/ 1987 audio interview of Robert Hughes by Don Swaim of CBS Radio, RealAudio]}}
[https://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/04/magazine/food-tuna-surprise.html The New York Times Magazine – Food: Tuna Surprise (A fisherman's journey to Costa Rica)]
[http://www.thenation.com/article/unsentimental-education The Nation – Christopher Hitchens column on Things I Didn't Know: A Memoir. (25 September 2006)]
[http://www.abc.net.au/tv/enoughrope/transcripts/s1784826.htm Enough Rope, ABC TV Interview – Andrew Denton and Robert Hughes. (13 November 2006)]
{{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121105181319/http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/writersandco_20071231_4243.mp3 |date=5 November 2012 |title=Interview }} with Hughes on CBC Radio's Writers and Company (January 2008)]
{{C-SPAN|49434}}
{{Charlie Rose guest|73}}
[http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2012/08/hugh-a30.html World Socialist Web Site obituary by Clare Hurley, "Art History with a capital A and H: Art critic and social historian Robert Hughes"]