Sheila Hicks (b. 1934, Hastings, Nebraska) received her 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 beginning an investigation into fiber as an artistic medium that Hicks continues to this day.
Sheila Hicks’ earliest weaving exhibitions took place in the Galeria Antonio Souza, Mexico City (1961) and The Art Institute of Chicago (1963). Numerous solo exhibitions followed: Galerie Bab Rouah, Rabat, Morocco (1971); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1974); Lunds Konsthall, Lund, Sweden (1978); Israel Museum, Jerusalem (1980); Seoul Art Center (1991); and Uměleckoprůmyslové Museum, Prague (1992). A major retrospective, Sheila Hicks: 50 Years, debuted at the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, MA (2010) and traveled to the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia and the Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC.
Notable recent solo presentations include Sheila Hicks, Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop and Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany (2024-25); Hilos que Viajan, Centre Pompidou Malaga, Spain (2023); Sheila Hicks: a little bit of a lot of things, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland (2023); Sheila Hicks: Off Grid, The Hepworth Wakefield, London (2022); Reencuentro, Museo Chile de Arte Precolombino, Santiago, Chile (2019); Campo Abierto (Open Field), The Bass, Miami Beach, FL (2019); and Life Lines, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2018). She has created monumental site-specific works for the Ford Foundation Headquarters and Federal Courthouse in New York; The Duke Endowment in Charlotte, NC; King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, amongst others.
Hicks’ work is in the permanent collections of The Art Institute of Chicago, IL; The Centre Pompidou, Paris; The Jewish Museum, New York, NY; Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Museo de Bellas Artes, Santiago; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and Tate Britain, London, among many others.
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. She was also awarded the title of Chevalier by the Legion d’Honneur in 2023. She holds Honorary Doctorates from Yale University (2019), 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.