Background

Hicks was born in Hastings, Nebraska, United States, on July 24, 1934.

Education

Sheila Hicks learned to sew from her grandmother at an early age. In 1952 she entered Syracuse University to study painting and printmaking. She transferred to Yale University School of Art and Architecture (today known as the Yale School of Art) in 1954, in order to study painting, sculpture, art history, typography, printmaking, photography, and architecture history.

Among teachers were Sewell Sillman, Norman Ives, George Heard Hamilton, Herbert Matter, Josef Albers, Bernard Chaet, George Kubler, Vincent Scully, and Louis Kahn. Her fellow students included Eva Hesse, who was interested in unconventional materials.

She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1957. Around this time, Hicks also completed an independent study of weaving with Anni Albers and ancient Andean textiles with archaeologist Junius Bird. She was granted a Fulbright Scholarship, and she lived and studied painting in Chile from 1957 till 1958. While abroad, Sheila Hicks photographed Peruvian and Bolivian archaeological sites and studied pre-Columbian textile techniques.

In 1958 Sheila Hicks returned to Yale and continued her studies with Josef Albers and Rico Lebrun. She received a Master of Fine Arts in painting in 1959. Hicks was awarded Fribourg grant to study painting and weaving in France from fall 1959 to spring 1960.

Additionally, Hicks holds Honorary Doctorates from the Rhode Island School of Design and the Ecole nationale supérieure des Beaux Arts, received in 1984 and 2014 respectively.

Career

Hicks held her first museum exhibition of weavings at Museo de Historia Natural, Santiago in 1957, and first museum exhibition of paintings at Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago in April 1958. In addition, she displayed her paintings along with Sergio Larrain's photographs at Galeria Galatea in Buenos Aires, Argentina in June 1958.

Sheila Hicks moved to Mexico in 1960 to teach basic design and colour in the architecture department at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma. In 1961 the artist exhibited her two and three-dimensional artworks in wool at Galeria Antonio Souza, Mexico City; it was her first solo gallery show.

Later on, Hicks exhibited in several collective shows, among them were those held at the Museum of Modern Art in 1960; the Museum of American Craft, the Kunstgewebemuseum and Milan Triennial, all in 1963. First solo exhibition in an American museum at Art Institute of Chicago and a first solo gallery exhibition in the United States at La Pina Gallery, La Jolla, California in 1963.

In 1964 Sheila Hicks was hired by Knoll Associates to develop textile designs and act as a consultant on colour and materials. The same year she moved to Paris. The artist exhibited in London and Oldenburg, Germany during 1965.

In the mid-1960s, she opened studio in Dauphine, Paris and created works for the Ford Foundation and Georg Jensen Center for Advanced Design in New York, Air France, TWA Terminal at JFK airport in New York, Rochester Institute of Technology, and, in Paris, the Banque Rothschild, Francis Bouygues, IBM, Kodak, and Fiat Towers.

Meanwhile, Sheila Hicks widely exhibited her works in Paris, London, Prague, Helsinki, Stockholm, Amerstdam, Munich, Marseille, Rabat, Dakar, Skopje, Tunis, Belgrade, New York, Madrid, Barcelona, Toulouse, Bourdeaux, and Los Angeles. Her works were displayed in the exhibition entitled Objects: U.S.A.- The Johnson Collection of Contemporary Crafts (1969); it travelled in the United States through 1971, and internationally through 1974.

Hicks was invited by Pierre Pauli to take part for the first time in 3`eme Biennale Internationale del la Tapisserie de Lausanne in 1967. She also exhibited in 4`eme Biennale (1969), 5`eme Biennale (1971), 6`eme Biennale (1973), 7`eme Biennale (1975), 8`eme Biennale (1977), and 16`eme Biennale (1995).

Sheila Hicks had her first museum retrospective, at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam in 1974. She opened her second studio, Atelier Bourdonnais, not far from Les Halles, Paris to create artworks for MGIC Investment Corporation commission in Milwaukee.

The artist worked in collaboration with film director Stanley Kubrick and set designer Jan Schlubach in the production of the film The Shining in 1977. She was to scout and acquire woven blankets and carpets in Paris to be hung over the balcony in the ski lodge where the film was shot. She collected 40 or 50 and added to them her personal works.

Around the same period of time, Hicks relocated her studio to cour de Rohan, Paris, where she created installations using newspapers and clothing lent by local hospitals in Sheila Hicks: Vikt och Volymer (Tons and Masses), Lunds Konsthall, Lund, Sweden. Between 1980 and 1983 she served as publisher and editor of American Fabrics and Fashion (AFF).

Hicks created large works for King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from 1983 to 1986 and Kellogg's in Michigan between 1986 and 1988. Simultaneously, she exhibited in Tokyo, Lisbon, Montreal, Jerusalem, New York, Kyoto, Brussels, Oslo, and San Francisco.

Sheila Hicks participated in Structure and Surface: Contemporary Japanese Textiles, Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Saint Louis Art Museum in 1999. She completed commission, The Four Seasons of Fuji for the Fuji City Cultural Center in Japan in 1999. It was a bas-relief of five tons of linen thread in ninety colours, 338 feet long, and spanning entrances to three concert halls and theatres.

Hicks cooperated with UNESCO to establish a design centre in Cape Town, South Africa, Manufacturing and Design Academy of South Africa (MADESA). She was an adviser to Proventus/Art and Technology Company for Kinney and textiles and Snowcrash design, Sweden in 2000.

Her later exhibitions include those held at Cristina Grajales, and Davis and Langdale Gallery, New York, and Passage de Retz, Paris, all in 2007. Hicks completed a commission for SD26 restaurant in New York with designer Massimo Vignelli in 2009. She presented her artworks at the Museum Boijmans, Rotterdam, and Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague in 2010. In 2013, the 18-foot-high Pillar of Inquiry/Supple Column was included in the Whitney Biennal.

In 2017 Sheila Hicks held a solo exhibition at Alison Jacques Gallery in Paris, and also participated in the Venice Biennale, Viva Arte Viva. In 2018, February 7-April 30, Hicks had a solo exhibition Life Lines at the Centre Pompidou which included more than 100 artworks.

Achievements

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  Sheila Hicks is one of the most outstanding contemporary artists. She is widely known for her unique paintings and installations, for the creation of which she used textiles, clothing, and other materials.
  
  Hicks is the recipient of numerous awards and prizes including her Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects in 1975, the Medal of Fine Arts from the French Academy of Architecture in 1985. Sheila Hicks was named a Chevalier dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the government of France in 1987, and elevated to Officier in 1993.
  
  The artist received a Gold Medal from the American Crafts Council in 1997 as well as the Smithsonian Archives of American Art Medal in 2010.
  
  Sheila Hicks' works can be found in the public collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Museo de Bellas Artes in Santiago, the Tate Gallery in London, and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, among several others.

Works

More photos

• installation

  • Menhir II

  • Six Soft Stones

  • Magnetic Love Affair

  • Full Regalia

  • Lares and Penates

• sculpture

  • Mini Boulder

  • Strophes

  • Bâton de parole

• Tapestry

  • Untitled

  • Squiggle

  • Rivage de Chablis

  • Linen Lean-To

  • Convergence I

  • Grand Prayer Rug

  • Hastings Visit to the Great Plains

  • The Principal Wife

  • The Silk Rainforest

  • Colored Alphabet

  • Tahoe (Rainbow)

  • Bas-relief panel for architectural project

  • Shaker

  • Wedge of Truth

  • The Enlightened Journey

  • Dream of Lost Days

  • Enveloped Madness

  • Chimera

  • IM/SH

  • Sweden

  • Malmo

  • Incline Rose

  • Cour de Rohan

  • Untitled

  • Untitled

  • Quipu Garoeda

  • Badagara white

  • Galets

Views

Quotations: "Textiles had been relegated to a secondary role in our society, to a material that was either functional or decorative. I wanted to give it another status and show what an artist can do with these incredible materials."

"There are no limitations. Try and release yourself."

"It is so important to make every day. The discovery comes in the making."

"I am never bored. I do not ever allow myself to be bored."

Membership

Sheila Hicks was named a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, Holland in 1975, and the American Craft Council in 1983.

• 

  Royal Academy of Art, The Hague , Netherlands

  1975

• 

  American Craft Council , United States

  1983

Connections

colleague:

Eva Hesse

Eva Hesse (1936-1970) was an American sculptor and painter, who represented Postminimalism movement. She made her works, using such materials, as latex, fiberglass and plastic. Eva originally pursued a career in commercial textile design in New York City, but her practice as an expressionist painter led her to experiment with industrial and every-day, or "found" materials, such as rope, string, wire, rubber and fiberglass.

References

• Sheila Hicks: 50 Years This volume accompanies the first major retrospective of Hicks’s work; it documents the remarkable versatility and dramatically divergent scale of her textiles as well as her distinctive use, and surprising range, of materials.
  2010
• Sheila Hicks: Weaving as Metaphor This book examines the small woven and wrought works artist Sheila Hicks has produced for the past fifty years.
  2006
• One Work: Sheila Hicks at the Mint This book focuses on the sculpture Mega Footprint Near the Hutch (May I Have This Dance?), a majestic piece by renowned fiber artist Sheila Hicks.
  2012