Sheila Hicks
ABOUT SHEILA HICKS
Sheila Hicks (American, b. 1934) is one of the most important contemporary textile artists of the 20th and 21st century. Born in Hastings, Nebraska, Hicks received BFA (1957) and MFA (1959) degrees from the Yale School of Art under the tutelage of Josef Albers. Awarded a Fulbright scholarship to paint in Chile, she photographed indigenous weavers and archeological sites in the Andes and also learned to weave from local weavers beginning an investigation into fiber as an artistic medium that Hicks continues to this day. She would eventually live and work in many countries such as Chile, Peru, India, Thailand, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, France, and the United States.
Hicks has created monumental site-specific works for the Ford Foundation Headquarters and Federal Courthouse in New York; The Duke Endowment in Charlotte, North Carolina; King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey amongst others. Her work is in the permanent collections of Art Institute of Chicago; Tate Gallery, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Museo de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile; Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, Museum of Modern Art, the Jewish Museum, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MO; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. and the Pérez Art Museum, Miami.
Hicks is the recipient of numerous awards including the Smithsonian Archives of American Art Medal (2010). She 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. Additionally, she holds Honorary Doctorates from the Ecole nationale supérieure des Beaux Arts de Paris (2014) and the Rhode Island School of Design (1984).
Sheila Hicks has resided and worked in Paris since 1964.
COLLECTION HIGHLIGHTS
In tandem with her artistic practice, Sheila Hicks has been engaged with the fields of architecture, design, and textile industry for over 50 years. Crossing Colors is Hick’s latest commercial collaboration. Working with Momentum Textiles, she has created a collection of three patterned weaves (Painting Strokes, Drawing Lines, and Crossing Colors) with coordinating solids (Weaving...
Sheila Hicks is one of the most important textile artists of the 20th century. She trained as a painter under Josef Albers at Yale’s School of Art and Architecture, and upon his recommendation applied for a Fulbright scholarship to study in Chile, commencing her lifelong commitment to textiles. Papillon (1997-2004), like others in her Miniatures...
Sheila Hicks’ Quarry Spider (2003) is an artistic achievement in color, structure and technique. The small weaving, measuring only 9 ¼” x 5 7/8”, is one of almost 1,000 works included in her series Miniatures – an enduring project that began over 50 years ago. Each was created on a small loom constructed from painter’s stretcher...
Sheila Hicks has lived and worked in many countries, and always immerses herself fully in the culture. In 1965, she was approached by a representative of Commonwealth Trust of Calicut, Kerala, India. CommTrust was (and is) the longest continually operating hand-weaving mill in India. The mill had thousands of highly skilled weavers, but their fabrics...
The granite and glass Ford Foundation Headquarters Building on East 42nd Street in Manhattan was designed by Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo Associates. Completed in 1967, the building is an icon of International Style Modernism. New York Times critic Ada Louise Huxtable hailed the building, with its sky-lit atrium and lush indoor garden, as “12 stories...
Textiles serve as the most engaging and tactile vehicle for color and life. They wrap, protect, and define us, and tell stories of the maker, user, and culture in which they were woven. This lively conversation with fashion curator, Dilys Blum; artist, Sheila Hicks; and designer, Luca Missoni will cover topics related to current exhibitions...
