Hugh Honour 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

Chinoiserie

Chinoiserie, a French term, signifying "Chinese-esque", and pronounced ) refers to a recurring theme in European artistic styles since the seventeenth century, which reflect Chinese artistic influences...

 in its European cultural context, and his overview of Neoclassicism

Neoclassicism

Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...

 (Neo-Classicism, 1968) is still (2007) "an introduction that remains unsurpassed".

Honour was born in Eastbourne

Eastbourne

Eastbourne is a large town and borough in East Sussex, on the south coast of England between Brighton and Hastings. The town is situated at the eastern end of the chalk South Downs alongside the high cliff at Beachy Head...

, Sussex

Sussex

Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...

, England to Herbert and Dorothy (Withers) Honour. He received a Bachelor of Arts from St. Catharine's College, Cambridge. 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).

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

Royal Society of Literature

The Royal Society of Literature is the "senior literary organisation in Britain". It was founded in 1820 by George IV, in order to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". The Society's first president was Thomas Burgess, who later became the Bishop of Salisbury...

Books

• Horace Walpole (1957)
• The Companion Guide to Venice (1966)
• Romanticism
• Neo-Classicism (Style and Civilization)
• Chinoiserie: The Vision of Cathay (1961)
• Penguin Dictionary of Architecture with Hugh Pevsner and John Fleming. (1966)
• Penguin Dictionary of Decorative Arts with John Fleming. (1977)
• A World History of Art with John Fleming (1982)
• The Venetian Hours of Henry James, Whistler, and Sargent with John Fleming (1991)
• The Visual Arts: A History with John Fleming. (1995)
• The Image of the Black in Western Art
• The Golden Land: European Images of America from the discoveries to the Present Time (1976)