Representative work by Sheila Hicks
← Back to Artists

Artist

Sheila Hicks

b. 1934, Hastings, Nebraska, USA · American · Based in Paris, France

  • MFA, Yale University School of Art (1959)
  • BFA, Yale University (1957)
  • Textile Sculpture
  • Fiber Art
  • Installation

Sheila Hicks has worked with fibre for six decades from a studio on the rue Schoelcher in Paris, treating thread as a primary material equal to paint or bronze. A student of Josef Albers at Yale, she travelled to Chile in 1957 on a Fulbright and never fully returned to the American art world of her generation, building instead across Mexico, India, Morocco, and France.

Hicks moves fluidly between the intimate "minimes" — palm-sized woven studies she has made almost daily since 1957 — and vast architectural installations of stacked, bundled, and dyed fibre. Colour is her structural material.

Gallery Representation

Objects

Artist Films

Major Works

  • 1958 onwardMinimes
  • 1969The Principal Wife Goes On
  • 1970sPrayer Rug
  • 2015The Treaty of Chromatic Zones
  • 2013Pillar of Inquiry / Supple Column
  • 2016Escalade Beyond Chromatic Lands
  • 2002May I Have This Dance?
  • 2015Baoli
  • 2016The Questioning Column
  • 1966Palghat Tapestry

Museums & Public Collections

Influences

  • Josef Albers
  • pre-Columbian Andean textiles
  • Anni Albers
  • the Bauhaus weaving workshop

Related Artists

Selected Exhibitions

  • 2022Off GridThe Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefieldsolo
  • 2018Lignes de VieCentre Pompidou, Parissolo
  • 2017Viva Arte VivaVenice Biennale, Venicegroup
  • 2011Sheila Hicks: 50 YearsICA Philadelphia, Philadelphiasolo

Publications

  • 2019Sheila Hicks: Lignes de VieÉditions du Centre Pompidoucatalogue
  • 2015Sheila Hicks: Weaving as MetaphorYale University Pressmonograph

Interviews & Writing