A Legacy of
Southern Art
Robert M. Hicklin Jr., Inc. is this nation’s leading dealer in fine art relating to the American South. Since 1972, Hicklin has represented preeminent paintings of Southern interest, including The Last Meeting of Lee and Jackson by E. B. D. Julio and important works by artists such as Elliott Daingerfield, Gilbert Gaul, Martin Johnson Heade, Hermann Herzog, Joseph Rusling Meeker, Thomas Satterwhite Noble, and William Aiken Walker. His clients include the country’s most renowned cultural institutions, as well as scores of corporate and private collectors across the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Europe.
In 1998, Hicklin moved to Charleston and opened The Charleston Renaissance Gallery®, a store-front venue offering discerning connoisseurs premier Southern masterworks, including nineteenth and twentieth century oils; works on paper and sculpture; and the art of the Charleston Renaissance. Restored to period perfection, the elegant nineteenth century gallery—located at 103 Church Street in the heart of downtown Charleston—was awarded the 1999 Carolopolis Award by the Preservation Society of Charleston in recognition of its outstanding rehabilitation.
In 2019, Rob and Jane closed the Church Street location of the Charleston Renaissance Gallery and relocated paintings and persons to Yemassee, South Carolina. The Yemassee War of 1715 was the last major disturbance in the neighborhood until Harriet Tubman orchestrated the liberation of hundreds of her people just downriver from our bend in the Combahee and Sherman crossed just upstream after leaving Savannah, shifting course for Columbia and saving Charleston. The promise of devastation in World War Two Europe prompted Publisher Nelson Doubleday to build a house on our corner of his larger plantation for Somerset Maugham so that he could ride out the War, safe from all but the mosquitoes. The Razor’s Edge was written in what is now my office.
Saraland Press, the gallery’s publishing arm, has issued a series of lavishly illustrated, large-format art books. The Charleston Renaissance details the artistic legacy of the painters, printmakers, and photographers who spearheaded a twentieth century cultural renewal in the South's "ancient, beautiful city." Other Saraland Press publications include: The Sunny South: The Life and Art of William Aiken Walker; Look Away: Reality and Sentiment in Southern Art; and The Last Meeting’s Lost Cause. Exhibitions related to each of these volumes have been mounted in major museums across the South. Calm in the Shadow of the Palmetto and Magnolia: Southern Art from the Charleston Renaissance Gallery was released in 2003, in celebration of the gallery's thirtieth anniversary.
A native of Columbus, Georgia, Hicklin attended public schools there and in Bessemer City, North Carolina before moving to Spartanburg, South Carolina in the late 1950s. Mr. Hicklin graduated from Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina and began his career in the art business in 1972 following a tour of duty in the United States Army. He is the owner of Robert M. Hicklin, Jr., Inc; The Charleston Renaissance Gallery: Saraland Press; and principal of Harlean Limited Partnership.
The Story of Southern continues as The Charleston Renaissance Gallery Archives are shared with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.