2019 exhibit at the Demisch Danant gallery, New York City
Sheila Hicks (born 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]
Born during the Great Depression in Hastings, Nebraska, Sheila Hicks spent much of her early life on the road, with her father seeking work where he found it. This “fantastic…migratory existence,” as she has described it, has come to define her six-decade career as an artist. Extensive experiences traveling, living, and working around the world continue to advance her exploration of textiles, the pliable and adaptable medium with which she is most closely associated. “Textile is a universal language. In all of the cultures of the world, textile is a crucial and essential component,” Hicks has said. Captivated by structure, form, and color, she has looked to weaving cultures across the globe to shape her work at varying scales, from small hand-woven works called Minimes and wall hangings; to sculptural fiber piles like The Evolving Tapestry: He/She (1967–68); to monumental corporate commissions, among them Enchantillon: Medallion (1967), a prototype for an installation at New York’s Ford Foundation. More recently, Pillar of Inquiry/Supple Column (2014) demonstrates Hicks’s intense fascination with experimental materials: a whirling structure of multicolored synthetic fibers cascades from the ceiling, as if breaking through from the sky above.[6]
Career
Sheila Hicks at the Musée Carnavalet, Paris, 2016. Photograph by Cristobal Zanartu
She photographed extensively with her Rolleiflex.[9] Her subjects included the architecture of Felix Candela and artists active in Mexico. The Pérez Art Museum Miami holds the artwork Tapestry (1977), an example of her cultural textitle explorations.[10]
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][13]
In 2013, the 18-foot-high Pillar of Inquiry/Supple Column was included in the Whitney Biennal.[14]
In 2017 Hicks had a solo exhibition at Alison Jacques Gallery in London.[15] Hicks also participated in the 2017 Venice Biennale, Viva Arte Viva, May 13 – November 26, 2017.[16]
In 2018, February 7– April 30, Hicks had a solo exhibition Life Lines at the Centre Pompidou which included more than 100 works.[17]
In 2021, June 4 – July 31, Hicks had a solo exhibition Music to My Eyes at Alison Jacques, London.[18]
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".[19] 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 manual practice 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 the other fields, and so I'm seeking out what that might be, unlike many artists, who are seeking simply to express themselves."
On April 13, 2023, Alison Jacques announced plans to expand the gallery's presence in London with a new location at 22 Cork Street – the new space will open with a solo show of new work by Sheila Hicks.[20]
Personal life
In 1964, Hicks moved to Paris, France, with her daughter where she has lived ever since.[8] In 1965, she married fellow artist Enrique Zañartu with whom she had a son.[21]
Work
Hicks' 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 as 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.[8][22]
The products of Hicks' free experimental practice, crossing what some may see as boundaries between tapestry, weaving, sculpture, fine art, craft, architecture, design and installation art, can now be found in internationally in art and design museums.[23]
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.[8]
1970: "Fete du Fil", Institut Franco-Americain de Rennes, France; Forme in Faden, Buchholz Gallery, Munich, Germany; American Library, Brussels, Belgium
1971: "Formes de Fil", Musée des Beaux-Arts, Brest, France
1972: Fils Dansants, Tapis aux Murs de Sheila Hicks, American Cultural Center, Dakar, Senegal; Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire; American Center, Milan, Italy
1974: "Sheila Hicks", Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
1976: "Tapisserie Mise en Liberte; Ancient Peruvian Textiles and the Work of Sheila Hicks", Maison de la Culture, Rennes, France
1977: Muzeja savremene umetnosti, Belgrade; Museum of Art, Skopje, Macedonia; Museum of Contemporary Art, Dubrovnic, Yugoslavia; Biblioteca Americana, Bucharest, Romania
1978: "Tons and Masses, Sheila Hicks", Lunds Konsthall, Lund, Sweden
1979: "Suite Ouessantine", Musée de Beaux-Arts, Brest, France
1979: "Inhabited", American Center, Paris, France
1980: "Free Fall", Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel
1980: "Small Jump", American Cultural Centre, Tel Aviv, Israel
1981: "Carte Blanche", Musée des Beaux Arts, Rennes, France
1987: "Textile, Texture, Texte", Musée de Beaux Arts, Pau, France
1991: "Soft Logic", Seoul Arts Center, Seoul, Korea; Centre Culturel Francais, Seoul, Korea
1992: "Cultural Exchange", Walker's Point Center of the Arts, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
1992: "Sheila Hicks v Prague", Umeleckoprumyslove Muzeum, Prague, Czechoslovakia
1993: "Small Works", Saka Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1994: "Textile Magiker: Sheila Hicks-Junichi Arai", Textile Museet, Boras, Sweden
1996: "Art of Sheila Hicks", Museum of Nebraska Art, Kearney, Nebraska
1997: "Sheila Hicks: The Making of a Doncho", Municipal Cultural Center Gallery, Kiryu, Gunma, Japan
1999: "Sheila Hicks: Seeds to the Wind", Contemporary Art Center of Virginia, Virginia Beach, Virginia
2006: "Sheila Hicks: Weaving as Metaphor", Bard Graduate Center, New York, NY[11]
2007: Entrelacs de Sheila Hicks. Textiles et vanneries d'Afrique et d'Océanie de la collection Ghysels, Passage de Retz, Paris France
2008: "Sheila Hicks Minimes: Small Woven Works", Davis & Langdale Company, Inc. New York
2010: "Sheila Hicks: 50 Years", Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts. Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, PA, and Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC[13]
2010: Sheila Hicks: Hors norms, sculptures textiles, Passage de Retz, Paris
2011: "Sheila Hicks - One Hundred Minimes", The Museum of Decorative Arts (UPM), Prague
2012: "Sheila Hicks", Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York
2013: "Pêcher dans la Rivière", Alison Jacques Gallery, London
2014: "Sheila Hicks", Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York
2014: "Sheila Hicks: Unknown Data", Galerie Frank Elbaz, Paris
2015: "Sheila Hicks: Foray into Chromatic Zones", Hayward Gallery, London
2016: "Si j'étais de laine, vous m'accepteriez?" Galerie Frank Elbaz, Paris
2016: "Sheila Hicks: Material Voices", Joslyn Art Museum Omaha, Nebraska
2016: "Sheila Hicks, Hilos libres. El textil y sus raíces prehispánicas, 1954-2017" (Free thread. The textile and its prehispanic roots, 1954-2017), Museo Amparo, Puebla, México
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.[26][27][28]
Augustin Pajou was a French sculptor, born in Paris. At eighteen he won the Prix de Rome, and at thirty exhibited his Pluton tenant Cerbère enchaîné.
Raoul Dufy was a French Fauvist painter. He developed a colorful, decorative style that became fashionable for ceramics and textile designs, as well as decorative schemes for public buildings. He is noted for scenes of open-air social events. He was also a draftsman, printmaker, book illustrator, scenic designer, furniture designer and a planner of public spaces.
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Besides surface qualities, such as rough and smooth, dull and shiny, hard and soft, textiles also includes colour, and, as the dominating element, texture, which is the result of the construction of weaves. Like any craft it may end in producing useful objects, or it may rise to the level of art.
Lenore Tawney was an American artist working in fiber art, collage, assemblage, and drawing. She is considered to be a groundbreaking artist for the elevation of craft processes to fine art status, two communities which were previously mutually exclusive. Tawney was born and raised in an Irish-American family in Ohio and moved to Chicago to start her career. In the 1940's and 50's, she studied art at several different institutions and perfected her craft as a weaver. In 1957, she moved to New York where she maintained a highly successful career into the 1960's. In the 1970's Tawney focused increasingly on her spirituality, but continued to make work until her death.
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Jane Kahan Gallery is an art gallery located in New York City that specializes in modern art. The gallery collection is founded on prints, monotypes, and paintings, including ceramics and works on paper by Pablo Picasso, and tapestries by artists such as Romare Bearden, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Sonia Delaunay, Roberto Sebastián Matta, and Fernand Léger. Established by art dealer and collector Jane Kahan in 1973 following graduation from Mount Holyoke College, the gallery initially operated as Kahan Esikoff Fine Arts prior to changing the name to Jane Kahan Gallery. The gallery maintains its original space on the Upper East Side and an exhibition space in Lower Manhattan.
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Urszula Plewka-Schmidt was a Polish artist and teacher, a co-founder of the "Polish school of tapestry", creator of monumental wall compositions.
Helena Hernmarck is a Swedish tapestry artist who lives and works in the United States. She is best known for her monumental tapestries designed for architectural settings.
Mariette Rousseau-Vermette, OC was a noted Quebec-based Canadian tapestry artist who pioneered innovations in the fiber/textile arts during the 1960–80s.
Françoise Grossen is a textile artist known for her braided and knotted rope sculptures. She lives and works in New York City. Grossen’s work has been acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; and the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Jeanne Leblanc Rhéaume was a Canadian artist.
Loja Saarinen was a Finnish-American textile artist and sculptor who founded the weaving department at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. She also led her own studio, the Studio Loja Saarinen, which designed many of the textiles used in buildings designed by her husband, the architect Eliel Saarinen.
Marie-Françoise Corot (1768–1851) was a French fashion designer (milliner), known as one of the most fashionable of her trade in the first decades of the 19th-century.
Mary Zicafoose is an American textile artist, weaver, and teacher who specializes in ikat, an ancient technique in which threads are wrapped, tied and resist-dyed before weaving. Zicafoose is the author of Ikat: The Essential Handbook to Weaving Resist-Dyed Cloth (2020). Her works are part of private and public collections, including at least 16 embassies around the world as part of the U.S. Art in Embassies Program.
1 2 3 4 Faxon, Susan C.; Simon, Joan; Chadwick, Whitney (2010). Sheila Hicks: 50 Years. Yale University Press for Addison Gallery of American Art. ISBN978-0-300-12164-3.
↑ Hicks, Sheila (April 2, 2014). "SHEILA HICKS with Danielle Mysliwiec". The Brooklyn Rail (Interview). Interviewed by Mysliwiec, Danielle. Retrieved March 7, 2018.
Danto, Arthur Coleman; Simon, Joan (2006). Stritzler-Levine, Nina (ed.). Sheila Hicks weaving as metaphor. Yale University Press for The Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture. ISBN978-0-300-11685-4.
Carlano, Annie (2012). One Work: Sheila Hicks at the Mint. Charlotte, North Carolina: Yale University Press for The Mint Museum. ISBN978-0-300-19085-4.
External links
Media related to Sheila Hicks at Wikimedia Commons
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