n">(Reuters) - Australian writer and art critic Robert Hughes, whose works include "The Fatal Shore" and "The Shock of the New," died on Monday in New York, his publishers said.

Hughes, 74, died after a long illness, publishers Alfred A. Knopf said in a statement.

"We are very sad to report that the renowned critic and art historian Robert Hughes died today in New York after a long illness," the publishing house said.

Hughes, known for his acerbic wit and criticism of modern art, moved to New York in the 1970s where he lived until his death.

He began his career as a cartoonist and later an art critic in Sydney before moving to Europe and later the United States where he landed a job as art critic for Time magazine.

He also worked in television, producing a 1980 BBC series on the development of modern art called "The Shock of the New" and a book that were noted for their insight and wit.

He also made TV documentaries on the painter Francisco Goya and a 1997 U.S. TV series called "American Visions" on the history of U.S. art since the American Revolution.

But he was perhaps most famous for his 1987 book "The Fatal Shore," a study of the early settlement of Australia and its roots as a British penal colony, which went on to become an international best-seller.

"The Fatal Shore" was rated in 2011 as among the top 100 non-fiction books written in English since 1923 by Time magazine, which called it "a staggering achievement."

(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Stacey Joyce)

View the original article here

NEW YORK | Tue Aug 7, 2012 10:16pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Judith Crist, a popular American film critic whose acerbic commentary helped herald a new era of film critics at newspapers and media outlets across the United States, died on Tuesday. She was 90.

Her son, Steven Crist, said his mother died in New York after a long illness.

Crist began her career as a journalist and film critic at the New York Herald Tribune in 1945, eventually becoming its full-time critic, the first woman to hold such a post at a major U.S. newspaper, according to the Los Angeles Times. She worked for two decades at the Trib before becoming New York magazine's first film critic. She was the film reviewer for NBC's Today show from 1964 to 1973.

Crist's more famous blunt and witty comments, directed at movies including "The Sound of Music" and "Cleopatra," provoked filmmaker Billy Wilder to quip, "Inviting her to review one of your pictures is like inviting the Boston Strangler to massage your neck."

Film critic Roger Ebert told the Chicago Tribune in 1999 that "the high profile of film critics can be traced to Judith Crist at the New York Herald Tribune in the early '60s."

He said her attack on "Cleopatra" led to her being banned from screenings by Fox, a gesture that "led to every newspaper in the country saying, 'Hey, we ought to get a real movie critic.'"

Crist was an adjunct professor at the Columbia School of Journalism from 1958 until last February, teaching critical and expository writing.

She was married for 47 years to William B. Crist, a public-relations executive and educator who died in 1993. She is survived by her son and two nieces, Helen McGough of Seattle and Edith Klein of Toronto.

(Reporting by Christine Kearney; editing by Prudence Crowther)

View the original article here