Hugh was born in Goroke, Victoria and moved to Adelaide in 1958 and he has lived here ever since. Hugh was taught at SA School of Art and he is now retired, previously an art teacher and small graphics business owner with his wife Yvonne. He has been drawing and painting, as long as he can remember.

The brilliant and quirky things about people and the things we can do has always been a favourite topic for Hugh's paintings. Musicians feature highly. Some years ago he was given permission to sit in on Adelaide Symphony Orchestra rehearsals, to prepare sketches for a subsequent series of paintings. It was a brilliant experience for Hugh, resulting in dozens of quick thumbnail sketches. He, later, produced about 40 paintings based on those drawings, musicians occupying a large space in his portfolio.

Hugh is perhaps better known for painting Border Collies running around on beaches, and they have been very successful for him. The pinnacle of his work always comes back to people and so he also paints many portraits including the previous Governor, Hieu Van Le, and his portrait of Anne Levy resides in the National Portrait Gallery.

As time passes the influence of great 19th and 20th century artists have influenced Hugh. These influences drives Hugh to strive towards new ideas an drives him to experiment and helps to explain why his latest orchestra and ASO paintings are as they are - a very different style.