Nicola Hicks (born 1960 in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

) is an English sculptor, known for her works made using

straw Straw is an agricultural byproduct consisting of the dry stalks of cereal plants after the grain and chaff have been removed. It makes up about half of the yield of cereal crops such as barley, oats, rice, rye and wheat. It has a number ...

and

plaster Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for Molding (decorative), moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of ...

Biography

Hicks studied at the

Chelsea School of Art Chelsea College of Arts is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London based in London, United Kingdom, and is a leading British art and design institution with an international reputation. It offers further and higher educat ...

from 1978 to 1982 and at the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...

from 1982 to 1985.Falconer, Morgan
"Hicks, Nicola."
In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, (accessed 12 February 2012; subscription required). Animals are Hicks' primary subject matter, usually sculpted in straw and plaster. This was unusual for an artist in the 1980s, by which time abstract sculpture and

installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called ...

had become the norm in the art world. Hicks also works on huge sheets of brown paper on which she works up her dynamic charcoal drawings. Many of the sculptures have subsequently been cast in bronze, often with such subtlety that every detail of plaster and straw is reproduced. Hicks was recognised by

Elisabeth Frink Dame Elisabeth Jean Frink (14 November 1930 – 18 April 1993) was an English sculptor and printmaker. Her ''Times'' obituary noted the three essential themes in her work as "the nature of Man; the 'horseness' of horses; and the divine in ...

, who selected her for a solo exhibition at Angela Flowers Gallery in 1985."Nicola Hicks"
, at the

Cass Sculpture Foundation The Cass Sculpture Foundation was a charitable commissioning body based in Goodwood, Sussex, England. The Foundation's 26-acre grounds were home to an ever-changing display of 80 monumental sculptures, all of which were available for sale with th ...

. Includes detailed biography and analysis of the piece "Recovered Memory". To accompany an exhibition at Flowers Gallery in 1993, Robert Heller said: "The only thing precocious about that one-day show was the artist's age: she was only 24. But the work had a maturity of concept and sureness of execution that defied precocity. The life-sized dying bull of straw and hessian, in particular, was a terrifying work, whose physical frailty contrasted with its colossal psychic presence. The Gallery quickly invited Hicks to join its permanent family of artists, and her first one-person show followed in 1985. Such discovery of new talent for the Gallery was a welcome by product of the annual Artist of the Day fortnight. Hicks was by no means unrecognised, though. She was still a student at the Royal College of Art (having got her degree at Chelsea), but had already featured in mixed exhibitions at locales ranging from Christies to Liverpool via Ruskin College. In 1985, however, her career blossomed. In addition to the Flowers show, her work was exhibited in Kettle’s Yard, the Hayward Annual, New York, Serpentine, etc." Hicks has achieved success as an artist, creating public sculptures such as ''Beetle'' in

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

and the second iteration of the Brown Dog Memorial in

Battersea Park Battersea Park is a 200-acre (83-hectare) green space at Battersea in the London Borough of Wandsworth in London. It is situated on the south bank of the River Thames opposite Chelsea and was opened in 1858. The park occupies marshland reclai ...

. She has had major solo shows in leading museums and galleries in Britain and around the world, and was made an

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

in the

1995 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 1995 were appointments by most of the sixteen Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to Orders and decorations of the Commonwealth realms, various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those co ...

for her contribution to the visual arts. In 2010 Hicks exhibited Black, 2008 in 'Exhibitionism' at the East Wing,

Courtauld Institute of Art The Courtauld Institute of Art (), commonly referred to as The Courtauld, is a self-governing college of the University of London specialising in the study of the history of art and conservation. It is among the most prestigious specialist coll ...

at Somerset House. File:Brown Dog - Battersea Park - 2008-04-09.jpg, "Brown Dog", Battersea Park, 1985 File:Bristol Nicola Hicks 01.jpg, '"Beetle", Bristol, 2000 File:Knights Templar - geograph.org.uk - 911186.jpg, "Statue on Knights Templar Column", London, 2000 File:Sculpture at Schoenthal-hicks 081.jpg, "Crouching Minotaur", Sculpture at Schoenthal, 2003

Key exhibitions

;Flowers Gallery East ''Wabbling Back to the Fire'', Flowers East, London, 19 September - 11 November 2017 A solo exhibition. ;Yale Center for British Art ''Sculpture by Nicola Hicks'' -

Yale Center for British Art Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the worl ...

, 14 November 2013 – 9 March 2014
In this exhibition, Hicks's life-size sculptures are placed in the galleries amid objects of the Center's permanent collection, home to one of the world's most important collections of British art outside the UK. ;The Universal Addressability of Dumb Things

Mark Leckey Mark Leckey (born 1964) is a British contemporary artist. His found object art and video pieces, which incorporate themes of nostalgia and anxiety, and draw on elements of pop culture, span several works and exhibitions. In particular, he i ...

Hayward Gallery The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre in central London, England and part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings (the Roy ...

Touring Exhibition. *The Bluecoat, Liverpool, 16 February – 14 April 2013 *

Nottingham Contemporary Nottingham Contemporary (formerly known as the Centre for Contemporary Art Nottingham (CCAN)) is a contemporary art centre in the Lace Market area of Nottingham. The gallery opened in 2009. The gallery describes its site as being "the oldest in ...

, 27 April – 30 June 2013 *

De La Warr Pavilion The De La Warr Pavilion is a grade I listed building, located on the seafront at Bexhill on Sea, East Sussex, on the south coast of England. The Modernist and International Style building was designed by the architects Erich Mendelsohn and S ...

, Bexhill on Sea, 13 July – 20 October 2013 *

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

(virtual exhibition), 1 June – 24 November 2013 This exhibition, curated by Turner prize-winning artist Mark Leckey, explores how our relationships with artworks and common objects alike are being transformed through new information technologies.

Bibliography

Exhibition Catalogues *''Nicola Hicks: Sculpture & Drawings,'' atalogue of the exhibition held at Flowers East, 1995London. *''Fire & Brimstone,'' atalogue of the exhibition held at Flowers East, 1991London *'' A walk in the Park,'' atalogue of the exhibition held at Flowers East, 2010London *''Sculpture, Drawing, Prints, Flowers,'' atalogue of the exhibition held at Flowers East, 2007London *''Nicola Hicks; Sculpture, Drawing & Light,'' atalogue of the exhibition held at Abbot Hall Art Gallery, 2005Cumbria *''Nicola Hicks; Keep Dark'', Published by Flowers Gallery and Elephant to coincide with the ''Wabbling Back to the Fire'' exhibition held at Flowers East, 2017 London Monographs *Dellingpole, J., Denselow, A., Elliot, A. Read, B. and Self, W. (1999) ''Nicola Hicks,'' Momentum Publishing *Lynton, N. (2004) ''Sculpture,'' Flowers, London, *Self, W. (1998) ''The Camel That Broke the Straw's Back,'' Flowers East, London .

References

External links

Nicola Hicks website

Entry for Nicola Hicks
on the

Union List of Artist Names The Union List of Artist Names (ULAN) is a free online database of the Getty Research Institute using a controlled vocabulary, which by 2018 contained over 300,000 artists and over 720,000 names for them, as well as other information about artist ...

. * Graham, Caz
Interview with Nicola Hicks
BBC Radio 4. 3 March 2005. * Alberge, Dalya

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

. 8 February 1994. * Flowers Galler
Nicola Hicks
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hicks, Nicola 1960 births Living people Alumni of Chelsea College of Arts Alumni of the Royal College of Art Sculptors from London English women sculptors Members of the Order of the British Empire 21st-century British women artists 21st-century English women 21st-century English people