Sheila Hicks (born 1934) is an American artist. She is known for her innovative and experimental weavings and sculptural textile art that incorporate distinctive colors, natural materials, and personal narratives. Since 1964, she has lived and worked in Paris, France. Prior to that, she lived and worked in Guerrero, Mexico from 1959 to 1963.

Early life and education

Sheila Hicks was born in

Hastings, Nebraska Hastings is a city and the county seat of Adams County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 25,152 at the 2020 census. It is known as the town where Kool-Aid was invented by Edwin Perkins in 1927, and celebrates that event with the Ko ...

in 1934. She attended the Yale School of Art in Connecticut from 1954 to 1959, where she studied with

Josef Albers Josef Albers (; ; March 19, 1888March 25, 1976) was a German-born artist and educator. The first living artist to be given a solo show at MoMA and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, he taught at the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College ...

, Rico Lebrun, Bernard Chaet, George Kubler, George Heard Hamilton, Vincent Scully, Jose de Riviera, Herbert Matter, Norman Ives, and Gabor Peterdi. Her thesis on pre-Incaic textiles was supervised by archaeologist

Junius Bird Junius Bouton Bird (1907–1982), born in Rye, New York, was an American archaeologist who was appointed curator of South American Archaeology at the American Museum of Natural History in 1934. His contributions to the study of ecology, climate, ...

of the American Museum of Natural History in New York and artist Anni Albers. She received her BFA in 1957 . Born during the Great Depression in Hastings, Nebraska, Sheila Hicks spent much of her early life on the road, with her father seeking work where he found it. This “fantastic…migratory existence,” 1 as she has described it, has come to define her six-decade career as an artist. Extensive experiences traveling, living, and working around the world continue to advance her exploration of textiles, the pliable and adaptable medium with which she is most closely associated. “Textile is a universal language. In all of the cultures of the world, textile is a crucial and essential component,” Hicks has said. 2 Captivated by structure, form, and color, she has looked to weaving cultures across the globe to shape her work at varying scales, from small hand-woven works called Minimes and wall hangings; to sculptural fiber piles like The Evolving Tapestry: He/She (1967–68); to monumental corporate commissions, among them Enchantillon: Medallion (1967), a prototype for an installation at New York’s Ford Foundation. More recently, Pillar of Inquiry/Supple Column (2014) demonstrates Hicks’s intense fascination with experimental materials: a whirling structure of multicolored synthetic fibers cascades from the ceiling, as if breaking through from the sky above.

Career

From 1959 to 1964 she resided and worked in Mexico; She moved to Taxco el Viejo, Mexico where she began weaving, painting, and teaching at the

National Autonomous University of Mexico The National Autonomous University of Mexico ( es, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM) is a public research university in Mexico. It is consistently ranked as one of the best universities in Latin America, where it's also the bigge ...

(UNAM) at the invitation of Mathias Goeritz who also introduced to the architects Luis Barragán and Ricardo Legorreta Vilchis. Since 1964, Hicks lives and works in Paris, France. She photographed extensively with her Rolleiflex. Her subjects included the architecture of Felix Candela and artists active in Mexico. In 2007, the publicatio
Sheila Hicks: Weaving as Metaphor
designed by Irma Boom to accompany the exhibition of the same name at Bard Graduate Center, was named "Most Beautiful Book in the World" at the Leipzig Book Fair. In 2010 a retrospective of Hicks' 50-year career originated at the Addison Gallery in Andover, Mass. with additional venues at the ICA in Philadelphia, and at The Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina. This included both miniature works (her "minimes") and large scale sculpture. In 2013, the 18-foot-high Pillar of Inquiry/Supple Column was included in the Whitney Biennal. In 2017 Hicks had a solo exhibition at Alison Jacques Gallery in Paris. Hicks also participated in the 2017 Venice Biennale, ''Viva Arte Viva'', May 13 – November 26, 2017. In 2018, February 7 – April 30, Hicks had a solo exhibition ''Life Lines'' at the Centre Pompidou which included more than 100 works. On April 21, 2022, Hicks had an interview with '' T: The New York Times Style Magazine'', the title of the interview was "Artist Sheila Hicks: Observing Her Surroundings in the Courtyard". She said the following about the way she works: "I move from idea to finished work acrobatically — it's as though I can feel the clouds shifting and the light coming and going. But because I frequently use fiber and textiles, I'm also quite specific in the way I work;unlike a video artist or a digital artist, I'm physically engaged in the creation of all my work. It's a manualpractice but filtered through the optics of architecture, photography, form, material and color. A couple of years ago, I received an honorary doctorate from my school — I went to Yale in the '50s — and it made me very happy because it validated my choice to work and live as an artist. It meant that I could contribute something to theother fields, and so I'm seeking out what that might be, unlike many artists, who are seeking simply to express themselves." "She likes to work simultaneously on many things. For instance, today she was asked to create an environmental work at King's Cross, near the London train station, for the summer months. She is also making something for a municipal complex by the port in Oslo to coincide with the opening of that city's Museum of Modern Art. Tomorrow, she will presenting models for tapestries to the Gobelins Manufactory. And then she has an exhibition up now at the Hepworth Wakefield in Yorkshire, England. she does whatever she thinks is interesting."

Personal life

In 1964, Hicks moved to Paris, France, where she has lived ever since. In 1965, she married fellow artist Enrique Zañartu with whom she had two children.

Work

Hicks' art ranges from the minuscule to the monumental. Her materials vary as much as the size and shape of her work. Having begun her career as a painter, she has remained close to color, using it as a language she builds, weaves and wraps to create her pieces. She incorporates various materials into her "minimes", miniature weavings made on a wooden loom. These include transparent noodles, pieces of slate, razor clam shells, shirt collars, collected sample skeins of embroidery threads, rubber bands, shoelaces, and Carmelite-darned socks. Her temporary installations have incorporated thousands of hospital "girdles" – birth bands for newborns – baby shirts, blue nurses' blouses and khaki army shirts, as well as the wool sheets darned by Carmelite nuns. Hicks's work is characterised by her direct examination of indigenous weaving practices in the countries of their origin. This has led her travel through five continents, studying the local culture in Mexico, France, Morocco, India, Chile, Sweden, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Japan and South Africa, developing relationships with designers, artisans, industrialists, architects, politicians and cultural leaders.

Solo exhibitions

* 1958: "Tejidos", National Museum of Natural History, Santiago, Chile * 1958: "pinturas de s.a.w. hicks—fotografias de sergio larrain", Museo de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile * 1961: "Tejidos—Sheila Hicks", Galeria Antonio Souza, Mexico, D.F. * 1963: "The Textiles of Sheila Hicks", Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois * 1963-66: "Sheila Hicks", Knoll International, Nuremberg, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Cologne, Berlin, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Germany; Basel, Switzerland * 1965: "Woven Forms and Sculpture: Sheila Hicks", Interiors International (Knoll), London, England * 1965: "Gewebte Formen", Landesmuseum, Oldenburg, Germany * 1970: "Fete du Fil", Institut Franco-Americain de Rennes, France; Forme in Faden, Buchholz Gallery, Munich, Germany; American Library, Brussels, Belgium * 1971: "Formes de Fil", Musée des Beaux-Arts, Brest, France * 1972: Fils Dansants, Tapis aux Murs de Sheila Hicks, American Cultural Center, Dakar, Senegal; Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire; American Center, Milan, Italy * 1974: "Sheila Hicks", Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands * 1976: "Tapisserie Mise en Liberte; Ancient Peruvian Textiles and the Work of Sheila Hicks", Maison de la Culture, Rennes, France * 1977: Muzeja savremene umetnosti, Belgrade; Museum of Art, Skopje, Macedonia; Museum of Contemporary Art, Dubrovnic, Yugoslavia; Biblioteca Americana, Bucharest, Romania * 1978: "Tons and Masses, Sheila Hicks", Lunds Konsthall, Lund, Sweden * 1979: "Suite Ouessantine", Musée de Beaux-Arts, Brest, France * 1979: "Inhabited", American Center, Paris, France * 1980: "Free Fall", Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel * 1980: "Small Jump", American Cultural Centre, Tel Aviv, Israel * 1981: "Carte Blanche", Musée des Beaux Arts, Rennes, France * 1987: "Textile, Texture, Texte", Musée de Beaux Arts, Pau, France * 1991: "Soft Logic", Seoul Arts Center, Seoul, Korea; Centre Culturel Francais, Seoul, Korea * 1992: "Cultural Exchange", Walker's Point Center of the Arts, Milwaukee, Wisconsin * 1992: "Sheila Hicks v Prague", Umeleckoprumyslove Muzeum, Prague, Czechoslovakia * 1993: "Small Works", Saka Gallery, Tokyo, Japan * 1994: "Textile Magiker: Sheila Hicks-Junichi Arai", Textile Museet, Boras, Sweden * 1996: "Art of Sheila Hicks", Museum of Nebraska Art, Kearney, Nebraska * 1997: "Sheila Hicks: The Making of a Doncho", Municipal Cultural Center Gallery, Kiryu, Gunma, Japan * 1999: "Sheila Hicks: Seeds to the Wind", Contemporary Art Center of Virginia, Virginia Beach, Virginia * 2006: "Sheila Hicks: Weaving as Metaphor", Bard Graduate Center, New York, NY * 2007: Entrelacs de Sheila Hicks. Textiles et vanneries d'Afrique et d'Océanie de la collection Ghysels, Passage de Retz, Paris France * 2008: "Sheila Hicks Minimes: Small Woven Works", Davis & Langdale Company, Inc. New York * 2010: "Sheila Hicks: 50 Years", Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts. Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, PA, and Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC * 2010: Sheila Hicks: Hors norms, sculptures textiles, Passage de Retz, Paris * 2011: "Sheila Hicks - One Hundred Minimes", The Museum of Decorative Arts (UPM), Prague * 2011: "Sheila Hicks - 100 Minimes", Boijmans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam * 2012: "Sheila Hicks", Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York * 2013: "Pêcher dans la Rivière", Alison Jacques Gallery, London * 2014: "Sheila Hicks", Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York * 2014: "Sheila Hicks: Unknown Data", Galerie Frank Elbaz, Paris * 2015: "Sheila Hicks: Foray into Chromatic Zones", Hayward Gallery, London * 2016: "Si j'étais de laine, vous m'accepteriez?" Galerie Frank Elbaz, Paris * 2016: "Sheila Hicks: Material Voices", Joslyn Art Museum Omaha, Nebraska * 2016: "Sheila Hicks, Hilos libres. El textil y sus raíces prehispánicas, 1954-2017" (Free thread. The textile and its prehispanic roots, 1954-2017), Museo Amparo, Puebla, México *2017: Galleria Massimo Minini, Brescia, Italy *2017: "Stones of Peace", Alison Jacques Gallery, London *2017: "Hop, Skip, Jump, and Fly: Escape From Gravity", High Line, New York City *2018: "Sheila Hicks: Lignes de Vie", Centre Pompidou, Paris, France *2018: Sheila Hicks: Migador, Magasin III Museum & Foundation for Contemporary Art, Jaffa, Israel *2018: Panta Rhei, Sheila Hicks, Judit Reigl, Galerie Nächst St. Stephan, Wein, Austria *2019: Sheila Hicks 'Line by Line, Step by Step' April 29 – June 8, 2019, and June 10 – August 17, 2019 (Next Chapter), Demisch Danant, New York *2019: "Sheila Hicks," May 11, 2019 - August 18, 2019, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, Texas. *2019: Sheila Hicks, Reencuentro eencounter August 9, 2019 – January 31, 2020, Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, Santiago, 2019.

Awards and recognition

* 1957–58:

Fulbright Program The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

, grant to paint in Chile * 1959–60: Fribourg grant to paint in France * 1975:

American Institute of Architects The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to ...

, Medal * 1980:

Middlebury College Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college in Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1800 by Congregationalists, Middlebury was the first operating college or university in Vermont. The college currently enrolls 2,858 undergraduates from all ...

, H.W. Janson Distinguished Visiting Professor of Art * 1983: American Craft Council (New York, NY), Fellow * 1984:

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...

(Providence, RI), Honorary Doctorate * 1985: French Academy of Architecture (Paris, France), Silver Medal of Fine Arts * 1987: Ministry of Culture's

Ordre des Arts et des Lettres The ''Ordre des Arts et des Lettres'' (Order of Arts and Letters) is an order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * Heterarchy, a system ...

(Paris, France), Chevalier * 1993: Ministry of Culture's

(Paris, France), Officier * 1997: American Craft Council, Gold Medal * 2007:

Textile Museum A textile museum is a museum with exhibits relating to the history and art of textiles, including: * Textile industries and manufacturing, often located in former factories or buildings involved in the design and production of yarn, cloth and c ...

(Washington, D.C.), 25 Year Honoree * 2010:

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washing ...

, Lifetime Achievement Award * 2014:

École des Beaux-Arts École des Beaux-Arts (; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth centur ...

(Paris, France) Honorary Doctorate * 2019: Yale University, Honorary Doctorate

Museum collections

Hicks' work can be found in private and public collections, including: Ford Foundation, NY, 1967; Georg Jensen Center for Advanced Design, NY; Air France Boeing 747 planes, 1969–74; TWA terminal at JFK Airport, NY, 1973; CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System), NY; Rochester Institute of Technology, NY; Banque Rothschild, Paris, France; Francis Bouygues, Paris, France; IBM, Paris, France, 1972; Kodak, Paris, France ; Fiat Tower, Paris, Franc; MGIC Investment Corporation, Milwaukee, WI; King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 1983; Kellogg's, Michigan; Fuji City, Cultural Center, Japan, 1999; Institute of Advance Study, Princeton, NJ; Target Headquarters, Minneapolis, MN, 2003; SD26 Restaurant, NY, 2009; Ford Foundation (reconstructed), NY, 2013–14; Foundation Louis Vuitton, Boulogne, France, 2014–15. * Addison Gallery of American Art (Andover, MA) *

Centre Georges Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

(Paris, France) *

Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egypt ...

(Cleveland, OH) *

Denver Art Museum The Denver Art Museum (DAM) is an art museum located in the Civic Center of Denver, Colorado. With encyclopedic collections of more than 70,000 diverse works from across the centuries and world, the DAM is one of the largest art museums between ...

(Denver, CO) * Industriet Museum (Oslo, Norway) *

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholar ...

(Princeton, NJ) * Kunsthalle Bielefeld (Germany) * Kunstmuseum (Oldenburg, Germany) * Manufacture des Gobelins (Paris, France) * Milwaukee Art Museum (Milwaukee, WI) *

Minneapolis Institute of Art The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the largest art museums in the United Stat ...

(Minneapolis, MN) *

Mint Museum The Mint Museum, also referred to as The Mint Museums, is a cultural institution comprising two museums, located in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Mint Museum Randolph and Mint Museum Uptown, together these two locations have hundreds of collection ...

(Charlotte, NC) *

Musée de la Mode et du Textile The Musée de la mode et du textile (Museum of Fashion and Textiles) was a museum located in the Louvre at, 107, rue de Rivoli, in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France. It is now a department of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. Works ...

(Paris, France) * Musée de la Tapisserie (Angers, France) * Musée des Arts Décoratifs (Paris, France) * Musée des Beaux Arts (Brest, France) * Musée des Beaux Arts (Pau, France) * Museo de Bellas Artes (Santiago, Chile) * Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico City, Mexico) * Museum of Art and Design (New York, NY) * Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague (Prague, Czech Republic) * Museum of Design, Zürich (Zurich, Switzerland) *

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

(Boston, MA) *

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, ...

(New York, NY) *

Museum of Nebraska Art The Museum of Nebraska Art (MONA) is the official art museum of the state of Nebraska. The museum is located in Kearney, Nebraska, and is administratively affiliated with the University of Nebraska at Kearney. The official charter of MONA makes ...

(Kearney, NE) *

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of ch ...

(Washington, DC) *

National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto The is an art museum in Kyoto, Japan. This Kyoto museum is also known by the English acronym MoMAK (Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto). History The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (MoMAK) was initially created as the Annex Museum of the Nationa ...

(Kyoto, Japan) *

National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo The in Tokyo, Japan, is the foremost museum collecting and exhibiting modern Japanese art. This Tokyo museum is also known by the English acronym MOMAT (National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo). The museum is known for its collection of 20th-cent ...

(Tokyo, Japan) * North Dakota Museum of Art (Grand Forks, ND) *

Okawa Museum of Art The is an art gallery in Kiryū, Gunma, Kiryū, Gunma Prefecture, Japan that concentrates on modern Japanese art. The gallery, which opened in April 1989, presents the collection of the businessman and writer Eiji Ōkawa (, 1924–2008), who ...

(Kiryu, Japan) *

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin F ...

(Philadelphia, PA) *

Renwick Gallery The Renwick Gallery is a branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum located in Washington, D.C. that displays American craft and decorative arts from the 19th to 21st century. The gallery is housed in a National Historic Landmark building th ...

(Washington, DC) * Saint Louis Art Museum (St. Louis, MO) *

Smart Museum of Art The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art is an art museum located on the campus of the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois. The permanent collection has over 15,000 objects. Admission is free and open to the general public. The Smart Muse ...

(Chicago, IL) *

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds ...

(Washington, D.C.) *

Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a design museum housed within the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan, New York City, along the Upper East Side's Museum Mile. It is one of 19 museums that fall under the wing of the Smithsonian ...

(New York, NY) * Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) * Tate Museum (London, England) *

The Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and list of largest art museums, largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visit ...

(Chicago, IL) *

The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

(New York, NY) * The National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC) *

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and ...

(London, UK) *

Wadsworth Atheneum The Wadsworth Atheneum is an art museum in Hartford, Connecticut. The Wadsworth is noted for its collections of European Baroque art, ancient Egyptian and Classical bronzes, French and American Impressionist paintings, Hudson River School la ...

(Hartford, CT) *

Yale Art Gallery The Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) is the oldest university art museum in the Western Hemisphere. It houses a major encyclopedic collection of art in several interconnected buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. ...

(New Haven, CT)

References

External links

*
"Sheila Hicks: 50 Years"
wiki entry from the

Sheila Hicks
in the collection of the

Sheila Hicks interview on Prayer Rug
1965, MoMA
An interview with Sheila Hicks, conducted 2004 February 3-March 11, by Monique Levi-Strauss, for the Archives of American Art
*Sheila Hicks personal website: https://www.sheilahicks.com/bio {{DEFAULTSORT:Hicks, Sheila 1934 births People from Hastings, Nebraska Living people Artists from Nebraska Yale University alumni American expatriates in Mexico American expatriates in France American women artists Women textile artists American weavers 21st-century American women