ROBERT HUGHES. 1938-2012
Robert Hughes death early this week, has robbed Australia
and the World of one of its finest art commentators and critics. Hughes was nothing,”
if not critical,” to borrow the title of his selected collection of essays on
art. He had the ability to compress and reduce the most complex concepts to a
powerful clutch of words, words that all could understand. His presence and writing
will surely be missed by all who take an
interest in cultural matters.
I first became aware of Hughes, as a young artist during
those heady days of The Sydney Push in the 1950s and 60s. A time of energetic thinking
among Sydney’s post war creative circles. The Bohemian
element of the city, often met in old fashion coffee shops in lower George
Street, the ones with high backed wooden cubicles for private conservation.
These coffee shops were the closest Sydney had to aspire to the café life of
Paris. The city was only just emerging from what was called the Six O’clock Swill,
when the male population would line up as many beers as possible on the bar, in
order to beat the legal closing time for hotels 6pm. I believe these shortened
trading hours were a legacy of war time blackout requirements.
Many European artists had fled to Australia during the 1930s
and post war, brought with them new ideas about art. Several had opened their
studios to students, or established schools such as Desiderius Orban at
Circular Quay, much to the delight of young painters anxious to gain experience
in this “new art” first hand. Germaine Greer often held court in these coffee
establishments, all of which was the Sydney of Robert Hughes’ youth. Lively
exploration of existentialism was fashionable, with the writing of Jean-Paul Sartre
and Simone de Beauvoir laying the foundations of modern world thinking.
How much of this influenced Hughes future
thinking I have no idea, but he was part of this world. He excelled in his
ability to display in the most subtle way the depth of his knowledge about art,
history, culture and the human condition. His analytical contribution to these
subjects will be greatly missed. I must extend my sympathies to his family and
friends
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