Robert Hughes (critic) - Personal Life

Personal Life

Hughes met his first wife, Danne Emerson, in London in 1967. They divorced in 1981 in New York. She died in 2003. Their son Danton, who was named for the French revolutionary Georges Danton, was the only child from her marriage to Hughes. Danton Hughes became a sculptor and furniture maker and lived in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. In 2002, at age 34, Danton took his own life. 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".

Hughes met his second wife, Victoria Whistler, at a speaking engagement in San Francisco. They were married from 1981 until 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 a critical condition. The Western Australia Police subsequently laid several charges against him relating to the accident. Two of the occupants of the other car were charged with trying to blackmail Hughes over the accident. Hughes recounts the story of his accident and recovery in the first chapter of his 2006 memoir Things I Didn't Know.

In a 2000 court hearing Hughes' 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. Hughes eventually pleaded guilty to the charge of dangerous driving causing grievous bodily harm in 2003 and was fined $2,500.

In 2001, Hughes wed his third wife, the American artist and art director, Doris Downes. He credited her for his survival following his near fatal car crash, saying "Apart from being a talented painter, she saved my life, my emotional stability, such as it is". He had two stepchildren from Downes's previous marriage.