Sculptor, painter and teacher, born in Liverpool, later living in Bristol. He studied at Liverpool College of Art, 1949–51, and the Slade School of Fine Art, 1951–55, where his teachers included A. H. Gerrard, Reg Butler and F.E. McWilliam. He in turn taught at Manchester Regional College of Art, 1958–60; Birmingham College of Art, 1960–65; and at the Bath Academy of Art, where he was head of sculpture, 1965–85. Hughes had solo shows at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, 1969; Bristol City Art Gallery, 1971; the Festival Gallery, Bath, 1982; the Victoria Art Gallery, Bath, 1986 and 1998; and Browse & Darby, London, 1995. His work was included in a number of mixed exhibitions and he showed once at the Royal Academy, in 1980 (Figures in a Landscape – plaster). There are examples of his work at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery; Bristol Museum and Art Gallery; and Chippenham Museum, Wiltshire, which staged a retrospective exhibition of his work, 1 April–13 May 2023. His publicly-sited commissions include a relief sculpture in cast stone for LCC flats at St Pancras (1954); a steel sculpture for Ivanhoe School, Ashby-de-la-Zouche, Leicestershire (1955); and Holy Family in the churchyard of Southwark Cathedral (1980–81). Hughes also produced portrait busts, a series of expressive heads inspired by Franz Xavier Messerschmidt (1736–1783), and a number of painted sculptures, both in relief and in the round which, according to David Buckman, were influenced by the German painting of the Weimar Republic, a subject on which Hughes lectured.
Sources include: information from the artist
Bibliography: D. Buckman, Artists in Britain since 1945 (2 vols: A–L, M–Z), Bristol, 2006; T. Cavanagh, Public Sculpture of South London, Liverpool, 2007, pp. 217–18.
Terry Cavanagh, 2007; revised April 2026