Sheila Hicks: Off Grid

With her monumental sculptural assemblages of vividly coloured thread, Sheila Hicks has spent her career blurring the boundaries between craft and fine art. Initially she studied painting under Josef Albers at the Yale School of Art in the 1950s, but Hicks soon progressed to textiles, inspired by pre-Columbian art; she has continued to look to artistic traditions across the world, travelling widely across South America, Africa, Asia and Europe. With more than 70 pieces, this show at the Hepworth Wakefield (7 April–25 September) is the artist’s first major retrospective in the UK; it includes a new site-specific installation, as well as a new group of monumental works shown within the garden at the Hepworth Wakefield. Find out more from the Hepworth Wakefield website – and for more on Sheila Hicks’s life and art, read Yasmine Seale’s interview for Apollo here.

Preview below | View Apollo’s Art Diary here 

Cordes Sauvages Hidden Blue (2014), Sheila Hicks. Photo: © Alison Jacques, London

Beyond Chromatic Lands (2016–17), Sheila Hicks. Photo: © Andrea Avezzù

Photo: Samuel Kirszenbaum