Sheila Hicks is an inter-nationally known fiber artist

Sheila Hicks is an inter-nationally recognized artist. She was born in Hastings, Nebraska and received her BFA and MFA degrees from Yale University. Upon completing her studies at Yale Hicks received a Fulbright scholarship in 1957 to paint in Chile. While in South America she developed her interest in working with fibers. After founding workshops in Mexico, Chile, and South Africa, and working in Morocco and India, she now divides her time between her Paris studio and New York.

One Person Exhibitions:
Museo de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile, 1958; Galeria Antonio Souza, Mexico, D.F., 1963; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1974; Konstall, Lund, Sweden, 1978 and 1986; Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 1980; Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, 1985; Musée de Beaux Arts, Pau, France, 1986; Matsuya Ginza, Tokyo, 1990; Seoul Art Center, Korea, 1991; Kajima, Tokyo, 1991; National Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague, Czechoslovakia, 1992; The Museum of Nebraska Art, Kearney, Nebraska, 1996; Kiryu Municipal Arts Center, Japan, 1997...

Collections:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Cleveland Museum, Ohio; The Art Institute of Chicago; The Smart Museum, Chicago; The Philadelphia Museum of Art; The Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota; The Saint Louis Art Museum, Missouri; Museo de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile; The Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague, Czechoslovakia; Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; The Museums of Modern Art, Tokyo and Kyoto; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam…

Awards:
Gold Medal, American Institute of Architects, 1975; Medal of Fine Arts, French Academy of Architecture, 1985; Decorated by the French Government, Officier des Arts et des Lettres, 1996. Gold Medal, American Crafts Council, 1997; Honorary Doctorate, Rhode Island School of Design; Fellow of the Kunst Akademie, The Hague, Holland…

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Among world civilizations, those of ancient Peru were probably the only ones that availed themselves to full extent of the latencies in textile arts. Not only did they succeed like others in elaborating richly decorated surfaces, but also they were unique in making bas-relief and even sculpture out of threads. Overcoming the neglect and oblivion in which these incomparable works have fallen, Sheila Hicks has retrieved and assimilated their tradition while marrying it felicitously to others such as those of Persia and India. Far from copying them, she has renewed them by original discoveries that appropriate them to the raw materials, the techniques and the aspirations of our time.
Her wall hangings have the living warmth and the thickness of fleece; their complex structure and their shadows seem to chisel out perspectives attributable only to dream palaces; they offer the mellow depth, radiance and mystery of the starry sky. Nothing better than this art could provide altogether the adornment and the antidote for the functional, utilitarian architecture in which we are sentenced to dwell. It enlivens it with the dense, patient work of human hands, and the inventive charms of a creative mind constantly stimulated by experiencing the gamut of those new materials which modern industry supplies, while remaining faithful to the immemorial rules of the most ancient perhaps of all the arts of civilization.

Claude Lévi-Strauss, Paris

“Baby Time Again” 1978
cotton, 9 x 20 feet
exhitition: Galerie Suzy Langlois, Paris
Galerie Carmen Martinez, FIAC

contact:
info@sheilahicks.com