Jerry Hicks trained at the Slade School of Art where he studied under Schwabe, Polunin, Coldstream, Freud, Townsend, Piper and Bird. He later studied with Walter Bayes in Lancaster during war service. He settled in Bristol in 1951 and took early retirement from teaching in order to concentrate on his art work.
His paintings have been derived mainly from the human figure in movement over brief and extended periods. Judo a favourite sport of his is often a recurrent feature. Other subjects are Roger Bannister breaking the four minute mile barrier, the Supper at Emmaus, Watergate and everyday domestic activity.
The Futurists were an early influence but most work in this genre has become more fluid. The Mediterranean light of Ile Ste Margurite has inspired many of his landscapes. Small outdoor studies in oil and pastel have provided the basis of larger studio oils. Portraits mainly in oil include domestic studies and many formal and informal commissions of individuals and groups such as Lord Methuen and Captain Ackroyd VC.
Since moving to Bristol he has exhibited every year but one at the annual RWA Exhibition. He has been an invited artist at the Mall Galleries in 1986 (where he won first prize) and at the Dorchester Galleries, Arnolfini, the Thornbury Festival and has featured in the Ile Ste Margurite Annual Exhibition from 1988 to 2000. He had a one man show at London's King Street Gallery in 1978
Murals and stage design in partnership with his wife Anne have included prize winning designs for Bristol Art Centre and several other theatrical ventures. Jerry Hicks has been known for a number of three dimensional and painted mural works in the Bristol area.
In 1994 he was awarded the MBE and in 1997 received the Queen's Silver Jubilee Award for Painting of great British Achievement. His involvement in the preservation and planning of Bristol city has made him an active and longstanding member of the Civic Society of which he has been a past Chairman. He started a five year term as Vice President of the RWA in 1997.