Hicks died from cancer near Franklin, Tennessee, on February 25, 2022, at the age of 71. He was co-editor of the exhibition's award-winning and critically acclaimed catalog, Art of Tennessee.

The exhibition was a seven-year endeavor from conception at his kitchen table to its opening, September 2003. He served as curator on the exhibition, Art of Tennessee, at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville. King's Blues Clubs in Nashville, Memphis, Orlando and Los Angeles, Hicks served as 'Curator of Vibe' for the corporation.Ī lifelong collector, Hicks was the first Tennessean to be listed among Art & Antiques 's Top 100 Collectors in America –- his collection focuses on outsider art by artists such as Howard Finster and B.F.Perkins, Tennesseana, and Southern Material Culture. Working over the years as a music publisher and in artist management in both country and alternative-rock music, Hicks's interests have remained varied. He moved to Williamson County, Tennessee, in 1974 and lived near the Bingham Community at 'Labor in Vain,' his late-eighteenth-century log cabin. Robert Hicks was born in West Palm Beach, Florida, on January 30, 1951. Nashville Lifestyles Magazine recently named Robert as the #2 in the top 100 Reasons to Love Nashville, describing him as Nashville's 'Master of Ceremonies'. He wrote The New York Times Bestseller The Widow of the South and has played a major role in preserving the historic Carnton mansion, a focal point in the Battle of Franklin which occurred on November 30, 1864. Robert Benjamin Hicks III (Janu– February 25, 2022) was an American author.

Hicks at the 2016 Rancho Mirage Writers Festival

The Widow of the South by Robert Hicks