Dave Hickey

Austin (1940 – 2021): The iconoclastic Texan’s nicknames were The Bad Boy of Art Criticism and L’Enfant Terrible of Art Criticism. With attire more long-haul trucker than art critic, he was provocative and insightful, even as he tried his best to offend readers’ sensibilities with his writings for Rolling Stone, ARTnews, Art in America, Artforum, and Harper’s Magazine. A Clean, Well-Lighted Place (after the Hemingway short story) was his short-lived but influential Austin art gallery opened in 1967. There he developed a niche for unconventional contemporary art. Hickey received a $500,000 MacArthur Fellowship (Genius Grant) in 2001 and a Peabody Award for his PBS documentary about Andy Warhol.