Sheila Hicks

Sheila Hicks (born in Hastings, Nebraska, 1934) is an American artist who has lived and worked in Paris, France since 1964. Prior to that she lived in Guerrero, Mexico (1959–63).

Sheila Hicks was taught to sew by her mother and to embroider and knit by her grandmother, making her 'thread conscious' from a young age. Hicks attended Yale University School of Art and Architecture in Connecticut (1954-1959), where she gained a BFA in painting (1957) and MFA in painting (1959) and studied with Josef Albers, Rico Lebrun, Bernard Chaet, Jose de Riviera, Herbert Mather, Norman Ives, Gabor Peterdi, George Kubler, George Heard Hamilton, and Vincent Scully. Along with George Kubler, independently, Junius Bird of the American Museum of Natural History and Anni Albers were advisors for her thesis, "Pre-Incaic Textiles." Hicks was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study and paint in Chile (1957–58); she photographed archeological sites in Peru and Bolivia.

In 1959, she was awarded a grant by Henri Peyre, Sterling Professor at Yale University, to study in France. Upon completion, she moved to Mexico and, inspired by pre-Columbian textiles and indigenous culture, established her first weaving studio in Taxco el Viejo. While in Mexico, she worked on textile projects for Mathias Goeritz, Luis Barragán, Ricardo Legoretta and Knoll International. With her Rolleiflex, she photographed the experimental architecture of Felix Candela in preparation for a documentary film.

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