Known for his eloquence and grit, the longtime TIME art critic Robert Hughes died on August 6 at age 74.

With TIME for more than three decades, Hughes often eschewed trends to remind readers that art should be viewed as worthy for its craft, tradition and excellence.

His popular television series, The Shock of the New, broadcast on BBC and PBS, brought Hughes fame along with his later American Visions about American art. 

Among his published work was a biography on Goya, one of his favorite artists of whom he wrote: “[He] speaks to us with an urgency that no artist of our time can muster. We see his long dead face pressed against the glass of our terrible century, Goya looking in at a time worse than his.”