Wool, silk, cotton, linen, synthetic textiles, plastic and metal
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/sheila-hicks-20116" aria-label="More by Sheila Hicks" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Sheila Hicks</a>
Grand Boules
Presented by the Tate Americas Foundation, courtesy of Melvin Bredrick with the support of Alison Jacques 2022
<p><span>Grand Boules </span>2009 is a textile sculpture comprising eight large ‘boules’, or ball-like forms, which are arranged either directly on the floor or on a low plinth. Each individual element measures roughly one metre in diameter and together they can be placed in varying configurations or piles. Like her earlier wall-hung weavings of the late 1950s and 1960s, known as the <span>Minimes</span> (see Tate T14126–T14128, T14171), the <span>Boules </span>are a key motif in Hicks’s work and a form to which she has repeatedly returned. The core of each boule is often formed from garments that have previously belonged to the artist’s friends or family, and as such they hold memories for Hicks, who refers to them as her memory balls. Layers of multi-coloured and multi-textured twine and fibre are wrapped around and around the central forms, building them up into tightly wound bundles. <span>Grand Boules </span>is the largest work in the series of <span>Boules</span>. Related works include <span>Palitos con Bolas</span> 2011 (included in Hick’s solo exhibition <span>Lifelines</span> at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris in 2018) and <span>Au-delà</span>,<span> </span>which she installed on a large wall within the foyer of the Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 2017–18. The <span>Grand Boules</span> were exhibited in Hicks’s solo exhibition at Alison Jacques Gallery, London in 2017.</p>
installation wool silk cotton linen synthetic textiles plastic metal
7 April 2022 – 25 September 2022
2022-09-25
7 April 2022 – 25 September 2022
2022-09-25
2022-04-07
The Hepworth Wakefield (Wakefield, UK)
2022-04-07
Sheila Hicks
Loan-out
Grand Boules
Overall display dimensions variable
Presented by the Tate Americas Foundation, courtesy of Melvin Bredrick with the support of Alison Jacques 2022
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<p>
<i>Grand Boules </i>2009 is a textile sculpture comprising eight large ‘boules’, or ball-like forms, which are arranged either directly on the floor or on a low plinth. Each individual element measures roughly one metre in diameter and together they can be placed in varying configurations or piles. Like her earlier wall-hung weavings of the late 1950s and 1960s, known as the <i>Minimes</i> (see Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hicks-ganem-t14126" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T14126</span></a>–<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hicks-twill-mexico-t14128" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T14128</span></a>, <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hicks-quipu-de-cobre-t14171" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T14171</span></a>), the <i>Boules </i>are a key motif in Hicks’s work and a form to which she has repeatedly returned. The core of each boule is often formed from garments that have previously belonged to the artist’s friends or family, and as such they hold memories for Hicks, who refers to them as her memory balls. Layers of multi-coloured and multi-textured twine and fibre are wrapped around and around the central forms, building them up into tightly wound bundles. <i>Grand Boules </i>is the largest work in the series of <i>Boules</i>. Related works include <i>Palitos con Bolas</i> 2011 (included in Hick’s solo exhibition <i>Lifelines</i> at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris in 2018) and <i>Au-delà</i>,<i> </i>which she installed on a large wall within the foyer of the Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 2017–18. The <i>Grand Boules</i> were exhibited in Hicks’s solo exhibition at Alison Jacques Gallery, London in 2017.</p>
<p>Hicks studied painting at Yale University in New Haven where she was taught by Josef Albers (1888–1976), then Director of the Department of Design, who undoubtedly sparked an interest in colour that continued throughout her career and found expression in her use of dyed thread and yarn, instead of the applied colour of paint on canvas. Drawn to the haptic or tactile qualities of textiles early in her career, she studied Pre-Columbian textiles and began to practice weaving. Hicks’s work is characterised by an ambition to expand the possibilities of thread as a sculptural form and in relationship to a given space or environment. She has built a long and successful career despite her resistance to categories such as ‘fine art’, ‘design’ or ‘craft’. In an excerpt from her diary, the artist described her practice: ‘What is my work? … I have studied painting, sculpture, photography and drawing, but my strongest attraction is to textiles. I make a kind of textile art. I develop environments, fabricate thread objects, weave textiles, build soft sculptures, bas-reliefs, and I design and make functional things from thread’. (Quoted in Whitney Chadwick, ‘Ancient Line and Modernist Cubes’, Addison Gallery of American Art 2010.)</p>
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<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>Sheila Hicks, <i>Weaving as Metaphor</i>, exhibition catalogue, The Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design and Culture, New York 2006.<br/>
<i>Sheila Hicks. 50 Years</i>,<i> </i>exhibition catalogue, Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA 2010.<br/>Michel Gauthier (ed.), <i>Sheila Hicks, Lifelines</i>, exhibition catalogue, Centre Pompidou, Paris 2018.</p>
<p>Ann Coxon<br/>April 2018</p>
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Summary
2023-09-29T00:00:00
summary
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