SHEILA HICKS
b. 1934, United StatesSheila Hicks’s distinctive multi-coloured installations, sculptures and textile works have marked her out as one of the most distinctive artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, creating works that defy the expectations laid down by two-dimensional forms, often emerging from walls and ceilings.
Early Years
Born in Hastings, Nebraska in 1934, Sheila Hicks has said she “grew up in a car” as her father drove his family around the Midwest during the Great Depression seeking work. When he became an expert in ball bearings, they moved to Detroit and then Chicago. Her mother was skilled in making items from “something leftover from something else”. Between 1954–1959 she studied painting at Yale School of Art with artist, designer and colour pioneer Josef Albers. Art historian George Kubler encouraged her to travel, and in 1957 she obtained a Fulbright grant to study Andean weaving in Chile. Between 1959 and 1964 she lived and worked in Mexico, learning how to manipulate threads and fibres from artisan craftspeople. In 1964, she moved to Paris.
Sheila Hicks: Artworks
Hicks’ genre-defining approach to textile art uses natural materials (wool, flax), synthetic fibres, industrial thread and found objects (feathers, shells... hospital laundry) as the basis for sculptural pieces that invite touch. The study of structure, form and colour lies at the heart of her work: pieces are constructed by piling, wrapping and weaving and featuring saturated hues. The evolution of her practice has been shaped by her desire to push the boundaries of fibre ever further.
- The Minimes series began during the 1950s—Hicks made a tool that she could carry with her to create intimately scaled artworks linked to a place, memory or atmosphere.
- She produced The Evolving Tapestry: He/She between 1967 and 1968 from linen and silk. It is made of hundreds of smaller pieces, so every time it is exhibited, it assumes a different form.
- Taxco, produced during the 1970s and inspired by her time in Taxco el Viejo, is a super-electric blue hanging work made from cotton and wool. Small pieces of red thread burst out against the blue, catching the viewer’s eye.
- 2009’s Grand Boules look like bright parcels bursting at the seams, a vibrant, energetic collection of sculptural works in various sizes made of cotton, linen, metallic fibre and synthetic raffia.
- Some of her pieces are truly monumental—for example, 2016’s The Questioning Column, more than seven metres tall and first installed at the entrance to the 2016 Sydney Biennale.
- Gabriel Reaching for Heaven was commissioned by The Hepworth Wakefield for Hicks’ first major UK retrospective in 2022. Hicks worked with a textile producer to develop weather-resistant fibres to allow her to create the monumental, rainbow-hued sculpture in The Hepworth Wakefield’s garden.
Sheila Hicks: Select Awards
Fulbright grant to paint in Chile (1957–1958) American Institute of Architects, Medal (1975) American Craft Council, Fellow (1983) French Academy of Architecture (Paris, France), Silver Medal of Fine Arts (1985) American Craft Council, Gold Medal (1997) Textile Museum Washington DC, 25-Year Honouree (2007) Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Art, Lifetime Achievement Award (2010) Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award (2022) Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur (2022) US State Department Medal of Arts (2023) Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2025)
Sheila Hicks: Select Exhibitions
Select Solo Exhibitions
- Live Wires, Sheila Hicks/Paolo Icaro, Galleria Massimo Minini, Brescia
- Material Matters: Sheila Hicks and Shi Hui, West Bund Museum, Shanghai (2026)
- New Work: Sheila Hicks, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2025)
- Hatano and Bill: Linked Destinies, At Shibunkaku, Tokyo (2025)
- Solo Retrospective, Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop (and Dusseldorf) (2024)
- Sheila Hicks: Infinite Potential, Alison Jaques Gallery, London (2023)
- Sheila Hicks: Threads that Travel, Pompidou Centre Malaga (2023)
- Make an Effort Every Day, Eenwerk Gallery, Amsterdam (2022)
- Off Grid, The Hepworth Wakefield (2022)
- Grace, No Gridlock, Galeriefrankelbaz, Paris (2021)
- Thread, Trees, River, Mak Vienna (2020)
- Sheila Hicks: Lignes de Vie, Pompidou Centre, Paris (2018)
- Material Voices Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha (2016)
- Predestined Colour Waves, Espace Louis Vuitton, Munich (2015)
- Big Ideas: Sheila Hicks at the Whitechapel Gallery, London (2014)
- Sheila Hicks—100 Minimes, Boijmans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam (and Prague) (2011)
- Art of Sheila Hicks, Museum of Nebraska Art, Kearney (1996)
- Sheila Hicks, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1974)
- The Textiles of Sheila Hicks, Art Institute of Chicago (1963)
- Tejidos, National Museum of Natural History, Santiago (1958)
Select Group Exhibitions
- Regards Croisés, Waddington Custot, Paris (2026)
- Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction, MoMA, New York City (2025)
- Are we still up to it?—Art and Democracy, Herrenchiemsee Palace, Munich (2025)
- Atterissage, Espace Louis Vuitton Seoul (2024)
- Flying colours in yarn and water, Galleria Massimo Minini, Brescia (2023)
- Diversity United, Flughafen Tempelhof, Berlin (2021)
- Blanc sur Blanc, Gagosian Paris (2020)
- The Architecture of Colour: The Legacy of Luis Barragán, Timothy Taylor, New York City (2016)
- Art Basel 2015 (2015)
Further Reading
- Sheila Hicks website
- 2026 podcast from Time Sensitive
- Artist profile page at Alison Jacques
- Sheila Hicks’ Instagram
- 2019 interview in Surface magazine
Sheila Hicks FAQs
What happened to the tapestries Sheila Hicks made for the Ford Foundation?
In 1967, Hicks created two bas-relief tapestries for the Ford Foundation’s New York City headquarters, based on honeycombs that she called “the beehive of social change activity at the foundation”. However, they deteriorated, and in 2013 she and her team painstakingly hand-weaved new versions, featuring more than 1,000 medallions.
How did Sheila Hicks and Monique Lévi-Strauss become friends?
Sheila Hicks met Monique Lévi-Strauss—who helped to get Claude Lévi-Strauss’ ideas about anthropology to a wider audience but is also a textiles expert—in Paris in 1968. Monique Lévi-Strauss wrote the first monograph devoted to Hicks’ work in 1973. A 2025 exhibition in Paris, Le fil voyageur, celebrated their work and friendship.
What techniques does Sheila Hicks use?
Sheila Hicks knots and twists fibres and threads to create her artworks, including found items ranging from noodles to shoelaces. However, her global travels—Chile, Mexico, India, Germany, India, South Africa, Morocco and many other countries—are also a huge influence on her practice, inspiring her to learn and reinterpret artisanal techniques.
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