David Nightingale Hicks
| David Nightingale Hicks | |
|---|---|
| Born | 25 March 1929 |
| Died | 29 March 1998 (aged 69) |
| Occupation | Interior decorator and designer |
| Spouse(s) | Lady Pamela Hicks |
| Children |
Edwina Brudenell Ashley Hicks India Hicks |
| Parent(s) | Herbert Hicks Iris Elsie Platten |
David Nightingale Hicks (25 March 1929 – 29 March 1998) was an English interior decorator and designer, noted for using bold colours, mixing antique and modern furnishings, and contemporary art for his famous clientele.
David Nightingale Hicks was born at Coggeshall, Essex, the son of stockbroker Herbert Hicks and Iris Elsie (née Platten). He attended Charterhouse School and graduated from the Central School of Arts and Crafts.
After a brief period of National Service in the British army, Hicks began work drawing cereal boxes for J. Walter Thompson, the advertising agency. His career as designer-decorator was launched to media-acclaim in 1954 when the British magazine House & Garden featured the London house he decorated (at 22 South Eaton Place) for his mother and himself.
An early introduction by Fiona Lonsdale, wife of banker Norman Lonsdale, to Peter Evans initiated business partnership in London as the pair, now joined by architect Patrick Garnett, set about designing, building and decorating a restaurant chain (Peter Evans Eating Houses) in London's "hotspots", such as Chelsea and Soho.
Evans said of Hicks:
"[He] was without a doubt a genius. He would walk into the most shambolic of spaces that I had decided would be a restaurant, a pub or a nightclub and, lighting up a cigarette, would be out of the place within ten minutes, having decided what atmosphere it would generate because of what it would look like. He always got it spot on."
Hicks and the architectural practice Garnett Cloughley Blakemore (GCB) collaborated on a series of private commissions, including a house on Park Lane for Lord and Lady Londonderry and an apartment for Hicks's brother-in-law, film producer Lord Brabourne. The firm also worked on a new house in London for Hicks's father-in-law, Earl Mountbatten. GBC achieved international recognition when it refurbished the George V Hotel in Paris for the Trust House Forte group. Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film A Clockwork Orange featured GCB's Chelsea Drugstore.
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