Panel Guest
Doris Downes is a fine artist specializing in paintings on the subject of Natural History. She has a joint degree in Art History and Fine Art. In addition, she is an author for the United Nations affiliated organizations- The African Conservation Foundation (AFC) and the Environmental Governance Organization (EGO) writing about diverse environmental concerns including mining, agriculture and sustainability.
Her career started in New York City as the Senior Art Director for Newsweek Magazine, Vice President and Creative Director for Sotheby’s Corporation and as a Design Director and Editor for the D.E. Shaw Group in their Internet Development division.
She is currently collaborating on the research, writing, design and illustration of a book on the orchids of Cuba. Downes is the Literary Executor for her late husband, Robert Hughes, considered “the most famous art critic in the world” as quoted in the New York Times by journalist Robert S. Boynton. Downes worked with Penguin-Random House Publishing Group on a posthumous volume of selected writings of Hughes due to be released later this year. It will include previously unpublished chapters from his memoir as well as excerpts from “The Fatal Shore”, “Shock of the New”, “Goya”, “Rome” and others. Downes lives and works in New York.
