Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Robert Hughes, art critic extraordinary.


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 cafĂ© 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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