Hugh Honour (born 26 September 1927) is a British art historian, famous for his writings. His A World History of Art, co-authored with John Fleming, is now in its seventh edition; his Chinoiserie (1961) first set the phenomenon of chinoiserie in its European cultural context, and his overview of Neoclassicism (Neo-Classicism, 1968) is still (2007) "an introduction that remains unsurpassed".[1]
Honour was born in Eastbourne, Sussex, England to Herbert and Dorothy (Withers) Honour. He received a Bachelor of Arts from St. Catharine's College, Cambridge.[2] While at Cambridge, Honour met John Fleming, a solicitor and amateur art historian, who would become Honour's life partner. Honour accepted a position as Assistant director of Leeds City Art Gallery and Temple Newsan House but left after one year to join Fleming in Italy. Living in Asolo near Venice, Honour produced his first book, a cultural guide to Venice. The pair were then commissioned by publisher Allen Lane to edit the Style and Civilisation series (begun 1967), for which Honour wrote the volumes on Neo-classicism and romanticism; the Architect and Society series (begun 1966); and the Art in Context series (begun 1972).[3]
In 1962 Fleming and Honour moved to live in Villa Marchiò near Lucca where they remained the rest of their lives. In 1966, they collaborated with Pevsner to produce The Penguin Dictionary of Architecture. Honour and Fleming then jointly produced The Penguin Dictionary of Decorative Arts in 1977, A World History of Art in 1982 and the Venetian Hours of Henry James, Whistler and Sargent in 1991.
Honour was elected in 1972 a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature [4]