Star Profile
Rick Simons of I. Pinckney Simons Gallery
By John Temple Ligon Temple@TheColumbiaStar.com

Rick Simons

With two locations and one name, I. Pinckney Simons Gallery shows contemporary paintings and sculpture by local artists such as Stephen Chesley, Mike Williams, and Boyd Saunders. The gallery is also well known for its antique works, paintings from all over the world and far into the past.

I. Pinckney Simons, source of the gallery's name, is the daughter of Rick and Irene Simons. She was born in Anderson, S.C., where her parents started their first gallery. Their son Richard is two years younger than Pinckney.

Gallery owner Richard Simons Jr., who never got a middle name, was born at the old Columbia Hospital at the corner of Hampton and Harden. His father was an executive with Weston- Brooker, the granite quarry on the west bank of the Congaree River. Simons is a direct descendent of Benjamin Simons, the man who built Middleburg Plantation in Charleston, S. C. (See sidebar.)

Simons has a younger sister, Kathy, who breeds Whippets on Edisto Avenue.

After a year in Mrs. McCreight's kindergarten, Simons moved up to Heathwood Hall School when it was still in the Heath mansion on Heathwood Circle and when Susan Robinson was in charge. Hand Junior High School and Dreher High School followed in sequence.

While in high school, Simons was something of an automobile aficionado. And to prove it, his first vehicle was a well- worn 1947 Plymouth Special Deluxe Coupe with an engine he personally modified. In his senior year of high school, Simons drove a new 1966 Formula S Barracuda with a 273- cubic- inch V8, which he totaled after two years.

Simons attended Clemson University and graduated from Baptist College, now Charleston Southern University. He enlisted in the Navy Reserve in 1969 and went into active duty the next year. He served in San Diego and also in Charleston before he was shipped out to South Vietnam. Off the coast of South Vietnam by just a couple of miles, Simons and his destroyer supported inland action with the ship's big guns.

For regular resupply and major repairs and an occasional R&R, Simons's ship sailed into Subic Bay in the Philippines about every six or eight weeks.

After his stint in the Navy, Simons enrolled in Appalachian State's MBA program at Boone, N.C. It was a fast- track schedule with no interruptions, and Simons had his MBA in one year.

Soon after graduate school, Simons sold his skills as head of Carolina Research Associates, a financial feasibility firm specializing in real estate development pro formas, the numbers crunch for new projects.

Simons bought George Walker's art gallery at the corner of Gregg and Gervais, changed the name to I. Pinckney Simons Gallery and stayed in the same building for another six years.

Since 1993, the I. Pinckney Simons Gallery has been on Gervais Street in the Vista. It moved into its present location between Assembly and Park in 2000. In September 2001, Simons opened his Beaufort branch of the gallery on 711 Bay Street in an award- winning new building designed by architect Bill Chambers.

Much of the art installed in the State House and the Governor's Mansion over the past 20 years has come from I. Pinckney Simons Gallery. Simons has recently sold art to hang in the U.S. Embassy in Canada. That happens when most of the art that hangs on Gervais Street or in the Beaufort branch is readily described as heirloom quality.