Sheila Hicks is an American artist, known for her experimental tapestries and her monumental works of art in textile using vivid colours that often illustrate her personal experiences. She began working with textiles in the 1950s; encouraged by the textile artist Anni Albers, she went on to take numerous trips to South America, Mexico and India. After graduating from Yale, she received a Fulbright scholarship and moved to Chili from 1957 to 1958.
During these stays abroad, she studied the different traditions and techniques of local weaving. Her gestural approach of thread work defied the notions of weaving that were held in the 1960s, redefining her limits in the contemporary art domain. She incorporates numerous materials in her miniature weavings such as seashells, rubber bands, and laces. In 2007 the publication ‘Sheila Hicks: Weaving as Metaphor’ designed by Irma Boom was nominated as ‘the most beautiful book in the world’ at the Leipzig Book Fair.
Her artworks have been exhibited worldwide, notably at the Whitney Biennale in 2014 in New York and the São Paulo Biennale in Brazil in 2012. They are also in public collections such as the New York Met, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Museo de Bellas Artes de Santiago and the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam.