Motherhood did not sit well with Robert Hughes' first wife. An eye-blink after she was through nursing their first child, she announced that the days of domestic tranquility were over and she needed to start sleeping with other men. Swinging London in the late '60s was teeming with libertines just like her, and so she was out almost every night, and coming home the next morning with drugs in her veins and traces of a new consort on her clothing or hair. Hughes was 'œshell-shocked,' 'œbewildered,' and not long faithful to his own marital vows. But hashish and single-malt whiskey consoled him too, and he might have never extracted himself from his funk if a call from New York hadn't come from out of the blue. It was an editor at Time, asking whether Hughes might consider becoming the magazine's next art critic.
Hughes soon raised the bar for critics in all fields, said Jonathan Yardley in The Washington Post. Time mattered in 1970 in ways that it no longer does, and Hughes used his new perch to rail against mere trendiness and lay the groundwork for The Shock of the New, a 1981 survey of modern art that remains 'œthe definitive book on the subject.' Born in Sydney to a fairly wealthy Catholic family, Hughes began fashioning a brawling elitism in the 'œintellectual boot camp' of a Jesuit boarding school, said Ariel Gonzalez in The Miami Herald. Neither the church nor Australia suited his tastes for long, but both left their marks. He escaped to London already 'œallergic to cant' and impatient with mediocrity. He still 'œwrites better about paintings than many painters paint.'
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
'A financial windfall for Iranian terrorism'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Orangutan heals cut with medicinal plantSpeed Read A Sumatran orangutan in Indonesia has been self-medicating to heal a wound on his cheek
-
Turkey halts trade with Israel in latest Gaza riftSpeed Read The country plans to join South Africa's genocide case against Israel
-
Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
-
Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
-
The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
-
Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
-
Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
-
Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
-
You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
-
Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”