For decades, Sheila Hicks has engaged with color, texture and verticality, using textiles as her medium of choice. Her unique approach is informed by her interest in architecture, space, historical weaving traditions and innovations in fiber technology. This new bilingual publication (English and French) focuses on her cascading multicolored columns. Building on her earlier work and occupation with verticality, the columns have extended to new and spectacular settings, notably outdoors, refusing any traditional limitations, adapting to various environments, from the Art Gallery of New South Wales to the rocky hills of the French countryside and medieval castles.

Hicks’ work has always been published in innovative formats, a result of her creative collaborations with designers. The book reflects the verticality that is crucial to Hicks’ towering fiber structures. It features stunning reproductions of the columns created by the artist over the last 10 years. The selection culminates in Hicks’ most recent installation, Vers des horizons inconnus in front of the Institut de France during Paris + in 2023. Radical Vertical Inquiries is an eye-popping, design-forward companion to Hicks’ work that shines on its own.

Sheila Hicks was born in Nebraska in 1934 and has lived and worked in Paris since 1964. Her engagement with different cultures enables her to create and exhibit artworks, ranging from the miniature to the monumental, that have been exhibited at museums and other institutions around the world. Among her numerous awards are: U.S. State Department Medal of Arts (2023); Officier de la Légion d’Honneur, France (2022); Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, Yale University (2019).