Murray Smither News Today

Charles Jones is a Renaissance man. He is a painter and a poet, a musician, sculptor and author who has had his hand in many books, creating images for multiple

He helped found Dallas’ Delahunty Gallery and once tracked down a renowned 1949 mural that had gone missing for years.

The visual art scene, however, lacked a center. Local artists were creating work that could compete in New York, but Texas galleries weren’t interested in showing contemporary art, and few buyers knew what to select to impress their friends. “It was just bluebonnet paintings,” remembers the artist Barry Buxkamper, who was an undergraduate student at UT when he first met Hickey. This was the void Hickey set out to fill.  The name “A Clean Well-Lighted Place” was a reference to a rathe...