Hilliard Gallery

Hilliard Gallery, at 1820 McGee Street in the Crossroads Arts District, is one of the oldest and most decorated fine art galleries in Kansas City — founded in 1974 at the Country Club Plaza by Kent Hilliard, and operated since 1996 by owner/director Bob Swearengin, a UMKC art historian with 30 years of continuous stewardship.

Description

Hilliard Gallery is among the oldest and most recognized commercial art galleries in Kansas City, in continuous operation for over 52 years. The gallery offers contemporary, figurative, and works-on-paper programming alongside an in-house custom framing operation built to conservation standards — a combination that serves both serious collectors and institutions. It has been voted Best Gallery in Kansas City, Best Gallery in Missouri, and one of the Top 25 Galleries in the United States by the American Art Awards.

The gallery’s programming extends to curated annual exhibitions — including its long-running figurative art show and the State of Contemporary Drawing series — that anchor the local art calendar. Current owner Bob Swearengin also curates the Eight One Five Gallery, reflecting his broader engagement with the KC arts community beyond Hilliard’s own walls.

The gallery is a LeRoy Neiman authorized dealer in the Kansas City area — a designation held since the gallery’s second year of operation in 1975, and maintained continuously through multiple ownership transitions.

Ownership and history

Hilliard Gallery was founded in November 1974 by Kent Hilliard at the Country Club Plaza — then the cultural and retail heart of Kansas City. In its second year, the gallery secured the exclusive LeRoy Neiman authorized dealership for the KC area, a coup that established its national credibility early. The gallery survived the Plaza flood of 1977 and the 1981 Hyatt Regency walkway collapse, which destroyed a satellite gallery and its inventory entirely.

In 1996 Bob Swearengin took over as owner and director — a tenure now approaching 30 years. Swearengin holds a BA in art history from the University of Kansas (1995) and is affiliated with UMKC’s Department of Art and Art History, bringing an academic rigor to the gallery’s curatorial program. In March 2006 the gallery relocated from the Plaza to its current facility at 1820 McGee Street in the Crossroads Arts District, where it has operated for the past 20 years.

Swearengin’s specialties include corporate art consultation and curation, collector matching, custom framing to conservation standards, art installation, and art brokering — making Hilliard a full-service fine art resource rather than purely an exhibition space.

Links

• Official site: https://www.hilliardgallery.com/

Sources

Disputes

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