2019 Catalogue Archive

When Hicks began her career in the 1950s, she chose softer materials and more organic compositions like her contemporary Eva Hesse, instead of the prevailing industrial materials used in American Minimalism. She studied under Josef Albers at Yale and was encouraged by Anni Albers to travel to South America and study the fabric arts of Colombia, Chile, Peru, and Bolivia. Hicks embeds this history of weaving into sophisticated works that showcase the color, movement, and physicality of textiles. Her works range from intimate, small-scale objects to large scale architectural interventions, seen here in Sober Streak Green, which was on view this past summer at the Nasher Sculpture Center as part of the exhibition Sheila Hicks: Seize, Weave Space. Hicks is definitely having a career moment, as numerous solo exhibitions of her work have recently taken place around the globe. Her work is in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; Centre Gorges Pompidou, Paris; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; MoMA, New York; and Tate, London.