Nothing if not critical

“Robert Hughes proves himself a day-to-day erìtie who transcends his own status as a journalist by the dedication wich which he adheres to his task; this is a body of work that can be put alongside the literary criticism of Edmund Wilson and not suffer by comparison … A book for every reader, No writer in our history has put together a better collection of essays” PETER CRAVEN, MELBOURNE AGE In Nothing If Not Critical, Robert Hughes addresses himself not only to the particular skill and vision of some eìghty artists, whether old masters or our contemporaries in Europe and America, but also to the vexed questions of artteaching, art and the marketplace, and art as a social function in the age of network television. “Really does write about painting better than anyone else in the world” CLIVE JAMES, Observer “Criticism at its most intelligent and impressive: trenchant, lucid, elegantly written and beefily contempuous of fads and modish bandwagons. Should enshrine Hughes as the preeminent critic =in any discipline — of his generation” WILLIAM BOYD, Sunday Telegraph “It conducts a rational and witty argument for and against our own era, converses with us as we read it, agitates memory and brings us news of the city” GREY GOWRIE, Daily Telegraph Cover: detail from Le Peintre (1970), by Picasso. Private collection/ Visual Arts Library © DACS 1990