Sheila Hicks

1934 -

Sheila Hicks (born in Hastings, Nebraska, 1934)[1] 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.[2]

Since 1964, she has lived and worked in Paris, France.[3] Prior to that, she lived and worked in Guerrero, Mexico from 1959 to 1963.

Sheila Hicks received BFA (1957) and MFA (1959) degrees in painting from the Yale School of Art.[4] She was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to Chile (1957–1958), photographed archaeological sites in the Andes and travelled to the volcanic region of Villarrica, the island of Chiloé, and Tierra del Fuego, which continues to influence her work. From 1959 to 1964 she resided and worked in Mexico. Since 1964, Hicks lives and works in Paris, France.[5]

While at Yale School of Art in Connecticut (1954 to 1959), she studied with Josef Albers,[6] Rico Lebrun, Bernard Chaet, George Kubler, George Heard Hamilton, Vincent Scully, Jose de Riviera, Herbert Mather,Norman Ives, and Gabor Peterdi. Her thesis on pre-Incaic textiles[1] was supervised by archaeologist Junius Bird of the American Museum of Natural History in New York and artist Anni Albers

In 1959, Henri Peyre, the Sterling Professor of French Emeritus at Yale University, selected Hicks for a grant to study in France (1959–60), which enabled her to meet the pre-Columbian textile scholar and ethnologist Raoul D'Harcourt.

Subsequently, Hicks moved to Taxco el Viejo, Mexico where she began weaving, painting, and teaching at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) at the invitation of Mathias Goeritz who also introduced to the architects Luis Barragán and Ricardo Legorreta Vilchis. In 1965 she married fellow artist Enrique Zañartu with whom she had two children.[7]

Hicks photographed extensively with her Rolleiflex.[8] Her subjects included the architecture of Felix Candela and artists active in Mexico. Her 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.[5][9]

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.[5]

In 2007, the publication Sheila Hicks: Weaving as Metaphor, designed by Irma Boom to accompany the exhibition of the same name at Bard Graduate Center,[10] was named "Most Beautiful Book in the World" at the Leipzig Book Fair.[11]. 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.[1][12]

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.

In 2013, the 18-foot-high Pillar of Inquiry/Supple Column was included in the Whitney Biennal.[13]. In 2017 Hicks had a solo exhibition at Alison Jacques Gallery in Paris.[14] Hicks also participated in the 2017 Venice Biennale, Viva Arte Viva, May 13 – November 26, 2017.[15]

In 2018, February 7 – April 30, Hicks had a solo exhibition Life Lines at the Centre Pompidou which included more than 100 works.[16]. 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".[17] 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.