The Collectors' Edge
Welcome to The Collectors' Edge from Nordic Art Partners – our guide to the specific work we do in the modern and contemporary art world.
We are researchers, dealers and collectors and our episodes explore the art and markets of under appreciated artists from history that intrigue and inspire us and that form the core of our professional activities. Our episodes strive to offer anecdotal journeys in learning, thoughtful insights and the wisdom of our professional experience, designed to help with well-informed collecting strategies.
Whether you're intrigued by the intricacies of the art industry, seeking expert advice on putting some of your money into art, or simply looking for inspiration about interesting and beautiful things to acquire that have been rigorously vetted by us, this podcast is for you.
Join us as we explore the art of collecting with a keen eye for aesthetic excellence and practical value.
The Collectors' Edge
Sheila Hicks: The Universal Language of Textiles
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The boundaries between fine art and craft have blurred dramatically over recent decades, and few artists embody this shift more powerfully than Sheila Hicks. At 90 years old, this Nebraska-born, Paris-based artist has spent over six decades transforming how we understand textile as an artistic medium.
Stepping into Hicks' world means discovering an artist whose work combines modernist color theory (learned directly from Josef Albers at Yale in the 1950s) with techniques gleaned from indigenous weaving traditions across the globe. Generally speaking, her pieces hang on walls like paintings or sculptural reliefs, with color blocks that shimmer and transform as light plays across their textured surfaces. Some bulge with sculptural dimensionality; others form monumental columns that completely transform architectural spaces. What unites them all is an extraordinary sensitivity to color, material, and form that makes them immediately recognizable as her work.
What's particularly fascinating about Hicks' career is how she's consistently existed in multiple worlds simultaneously. From her earliest exhibitions in the 1960s, she moved fluidly between fine art museums and design contexts, never limiting herself to one category, seeking and finding opportunity in both. This boundary-crossing approach feels remarkably contemporary, yet she pioneered it decades before it became fashionable. Her works now reside in virtually every major museum collection worldwide—from MoMA and the Whitney to the Tate and Centre Pompidou—evidence of her profound influence.
For collectors, Hicks offers a rare opportunity: work by a historically significant artist whose prices (typically €100,000-300,000) remain reasonable compared to many contemporaries with far less impressive credentials. Whether you're drawn to her intimate "minime" pieces or larger tapestry works, collecting Hicks means acquiring something that transcends categories and speaks a truly universal visual language. Discover why museums, critics, and collectors worldwide are celebrating this extraordinary artist whose vision has permanently changed how we see textile in contemporary art.
Introduction to Sheila Hicks
Jeppe CurthHi and welcome to the Collector's Edge from Nordic Art Partners . In today's episode we will explore the world of Sheila Hicks , an artist who has transformed the way we see textile and fiber in contemporary art . With me in the studio is our art expert , nicholas Robinson . I'm your host , Jeppe Curth . Let's get started . It is with Alex Rotter at 400 million Selling here at Christie's .
Nicholas Robinson$400 million is the bid and the piece is sold . We've all heard about it . Sometimes it's front-page news Important works of art are being sold for incredible sums of money , but can you get involved and become a part of the exclusive club yourself , and how do you get started while avoiding buying the wrong things ? That's exactly what this podcast is about . This is the Collector's Edge from Nordic Art Partners , a podcast for those of you interested in the mechanics of the art industry , want advice about putting money into art , or simply want to buy something for your walls , to beautify your surroundings . Whatever your objectives , it is possible to put money into art wisely , to be considered thoughtful and well-informed in your choices and actions .
Jeppe CurthWelcome to the art of collecting with an eye for curated beauty and practical value . Curated beauty and practical value . Sheila Hicks today , and I'm looking very much forward to it . Could you start from the beginning , as always , and tell us a little bit about her background ?
Nicholas RobinsonAbsolutely Before we do , though you say you're looking forward to this one . What about ? How aware are you of Sheila Hicks' work ? When did you first come across it ? This is maybe also interesting to , because I think that she's an artist who's been you know , a lot of the artists that we talk about . People will probably be a little familiar with our , you know our approach towards artists that have had very long and storied careers but are perhaps a little underrated or underappreciated , and I think that you know there's there's probably no secret that that sheila hicks probably comes into that category , but is she an artist that you've been aware of , that you've seen around , that you've started to see around in a more sort of prevalent way to what's your ?
Jeppe CurthWell , when I started buying and collecting was most danish artist , and then we met a decade ago and we started looking international . But I didn't know , sheila , before you mentioned it , I guess a year ago , okay a year ago okay , yeah , when you mentioned first time , I didn't know her name , I didn't notice her . But also , maybe I have always been most looking at paintings and that is maybe the difference with ashita's works is that it's it's .
Nicholas RobinsonIt's not a painting , but it's interesting because I have a confession to make . I have also not known about her work for a really long time . I mean , I've you studied this for most of my sentient life in one way or another , and it's very vocational thing for me to read about art , to look at art , to learn about art and the artists that make it . But when I grew up studying art history , you know she's a . She's a figure that's been in and around all of the sort of seminal artists of these various modernist generations and of course we'll get into the biographical details in a few minutes . But it's not a , she's not an artist who who has been very much sort of up front and center or even existed at all in many of my learnings . So it's a relatively new thing for me also to come to her work , to experience it , to learn about it and to be inspired by it .
Jeppe CurthAnyway , good . Well then , I guess I'm not the only one .
Nicholas RobinsonBut let's get into it to try and learn a little bit about her . She's an American woman , born in 1934 . So she's 90 , 91 years old at this , at this point , and I guess you know she's . She's . She's known mostly as a she was she's known as a textile artist . Her work is premised on textile and fabric and weaving and we will get into that , but that's , that's what her reputation is founded upon .
Nicholas RobinsonShe was born in Nebraska in 1934 , during the great depression , and her , her earliest childhood memories were formed by a very peripatetic life with her family , and by that I mean they moved
Early Life and Yale Education
Nicholas Robinsonaround a great deal during the depression . It was not uncommon for the man of the household to sort of drag his family around the country , you know , looking for this sort of economic sustenance . But she's described it as a fantastic migratory experience . So for her it was . It was an exciting time , her childhood . She has spoken quite vividly of very specific memories of playing hide and seek in the cornfields as a child and having somehow carried with her a strong awareness that she was very affected by this close proximity to nature and by her experiences of it in a very sort of physical and visceral way In the 1950s , from 1954 to 1959 , she attended the Yale School of Art in Connecticut , and this is sort of an interesting time here because this is the time where the faculty was headed up by Joseph Albers .
Nicholas RobinsonNow , as we've learned in a prior episode about Joseph Albers , he was a sort of a seminal figure in modernist thinking but also in modernist art education at the midpoint of the 20th century , coming from the Bauhaus to Black Mountain , to Yale , where he was a seminal figure in all of these institutions , all of these institutions . But other alumni from this time at Yale included Eva Hess , sylvia Plymouth Mangold , many of whom have had various responses to Alba's seminal book , the Interaction of Colour , which at the time was responsible for heralding dramatically new approaches to colour as the main device of a composition , and it left a lasting impression , a deep impression , on many artists' work , but very specifically on Sheila Hicks' work , another sort of interesting sort of aside to her being taught mentored by Albers , he had had a long pedigree in championing various art media . His own art career began working in glass . So he had a sort of highly progressive attitude toward all kinds of media and not just sort of snobbishly prioritizing the sort of hierarchy of art media with oil painting or bronze or marble at the very top . You know from his days as a master at the Bauhaus , his founding of the art school at Black Mountain College , where his students included .
Nicholas RobinsonYou know Ruth Asawa , another very significant woman artist of the 20th century whose work embraced sort of a crafting type medium . And of course Albers' wife , annie Albers , was also a very renowned textile artist . So this is a sort of context in which Sheila Hicks is growing up as a young artist . In 1957 , she had also been studying Andean textiles in one of the classes at Yale and this enabled her to get a Fulbright grant to study this whilst traveling in Chile , using the funds to travel and explore and learn . So she sort of parlayed this love of travel that she had sort of had inculcated into her from her childhood into her young adulthood . From 59 to 64 , she resided in Mexico where she was weaving and painting and teaching these things at the National Autonomous University of Mexico , where she also was introduced to this sort of great Mexican modernist architect , luis Barragan . And since 1964 , she has lived and worked in Paris and to this day she is still based in Paris .
Jeppe CurthThank you , Nick . You said that she studied under Joseph Albers right , Correct . What influence do you think he had on her approach ?
Nicholas RobinsonWell , I think that's very clear . I mean , albers' main preoccupation was with different blocks of colour as the main foundational compositional devices for making paintings . His paintings were about colour and specifically the way colours influence and affect other colours , most often in the same tonal register next to them , and her work clearly bears the influence of his teachings on colour . But her work is also very much about textile . It's always been most closely associated with textile . For her and this is a quotation textile is a universal language . In all the cultures of the world . Textile is a crucial and essential component .
Nicholas RobinsonAnd her work also has shown her love of travel . A lot of her work is about not just the differences but also the commonality between different indigenous weaving practices . So from her travels , early travels in the Andean communities , in Chile , mexico , france , she's traveled extensively in Morocco , india , sweden , israel , saudi Arabia , japan , south Africa ,
Global Travels and Artistic Development
Nicholas Robinsonsome of which places she has established workshops as well . So she's always been mining local knowledge in order to inform her own work and , I guess , to sort of even transcend these , the sort of arbitrary nature of these geographic boundaries . So there's a sort of a universality in her work , I guess . But if we return to the sort of the main themes of her work . I mean , there's always been a focus on structure , form and colour which I suppose , going back to the influence of Albers , really are the sort of her works hang on the wall , like a painting . There are different sort of colours of fabric , yarn stretched around a stretcher bar which is the same kind of framework that a canvas would be stretched on in the making of a painting . So these sort of hang on the wall and I suppose these works could be argued to be a very purest form of modernist expression .
Nicholas RobinsonNow , if you think about a painting , a painting is quite literally pigment or colour applied on fabric , you know , namely the canvas . But her work is the fabric , so the sort of materiality , the support , the form is the color . So the key to the physical properties of her work is that color , form and texture are all inextricably linked . And if we go back to her sort of place , her position within her peers , her generational peers , we can sort of see that maybe her works bear some affinity with the colour field painters . Now , the colour field painters , most significantly Morris Lewis , kenneth Noland . One of the key precepts of their works was the fact that surface and colour became more closely intertwined than ever before . For them it was important that colour was not applied to the surface . It was poured and stained and soaked into the canvas so that colour didn't became the surface . So in a way , her work has some parallels with this idea . Compositionally , a lot of her works consist of sort of blocks of colour , areas of colour contiguous to other areas of colour .
Nicholas RobinsonAnd another key concern of modernism , and perhaps sort of geometric minimalist practices within modernism more specifically , is the grid . Now , the grid has always been considered as a sort of a foundational system on which is based , you know , the structures of modern life . We can look at the work of Donald Judd or Carl Andre or Sol LeWitt and we can see how this idea , this idea of the grid and the repetition of the grid , recurs frequently within their works . But so too with weaving . I mean weaving is very clearly physically premised on the grid . It's about the grid .
Nicholas RobinsonThe methodology of weaving is , you know , it needs the grid . So that's something . So that's something that , that , that that Sheila Hicks has recognized in her work . But then then , one of the things that she points to with the , some of the compositional or design choices she makes , I mean , of course , if you're making a weaving , you can very rigidly adhere to a certain kind of repetition , but if you want to , you can make deviations . You can miss a loop , you can do a twist , you can loop it over another thread . I mean , there's different things you can , different choices you can consciously make in order to create these little deviations . And so , for her , these deviations are sort of inherent to the organic nature of her materials , but they can also be read as metaphors for people , for individuals who are sort of asserting their individuality or personalities against the rigidity of this sort of underlying systemic order represented by the grid .
Jeppe CurthBut , as we learned in former episode about Picasso , ceramics , fiber art or textile art as she's practicing , has long been considered as craft rather than fine art . How did Sheila help change this perception ?
Nicholas RobinsonWell , she's changed it because of her persistence and her adherence to working in this medium for such a long period of time .
Nicholas RobinsonI mean , she has made multiple series of works , all of which have textile at their heart .
Nicholas RobinsonSome of them are very small , very intimate , and some of them are enormously monumental in scale . And so I guess her contribution really to setting this example about the importance of this medium is really just comes from the sort of free , experimental nature of her practice , and she's continually crossing over and blurring these boundaries between tapestry , weaving , painting , sculpture , these sort of notions of fine art and craft , and then he you know spilling over into architecture , design , installation art and and . And the fact that her work is found internationally in both art and design museums , shows that she's , you know , increasing , and of course you know she's been doing this for 60 , 60 odd years . So there's a , you know , a sort of a momentum that's slowly built over time . It's not she hasn't performed some sort of transformative role . She is a seminal figure in the way we look at things today , when we look back and when we understand that these very arbitrary distinctions between media are no longer really a necessary or relevant or helpful way to look at people making things
Textile as Fine Art Medium
Nicholas Robinson, creating things .
Jeppe CurthOkay , so let's talk a little bit about her market . She is represented by some top tier galleries .
Nicholas RobinsonMaybe you could mention a few and also what they have meant for her career and visibility sure , sure , I mean her market is a I mean it's always a sort of a strange thing to talk about because you know her her market is , you know , of course it's . It's related to the way we look at an artist and , of course , some of the reasons why we choose to get involved in an artist , but for her , she has consistently been working and showing since 1958 . She has , you know , I mentioned the wall hung works that she makes , the sort of painting type formats that she makes which she calls minims . Some of them are very small and some of them have other objects sort of ensnared by the weave , sometimes clamshells , razors , other small objects . She makes wall hangings that have a much more sort of relief , base , relief kind of sculptural property where there's sort of bulbous twists around these kind of columnar weavings . Some of them are these sort of piles of sculptural fibers , some of them are sort of these big pigmented bales of yarn and some of them are more like tapestries , with these sort of shimmering , elongated tubes of yarn arrayed in a sort of long horizontal format . And she's exhibited various kinds of these works at different junctures throughout her career . I mean , her career and her market , you know , are perhaps not quite the same thing , but I suppose it's useful for us to consider them in the same breath . I mean , if you look at the , the market for her work , in terms of work occurring frequently at auction , that has not happened so frequently . I I mean her work has traded at auction in a sort of ad hoc way for you know a long time , but you can probably only go back to maybe sort of 2009 , 2010 . So 15 , 16 , 17 years where her work has consistently been traded on the secondary market , at auction and and it's over this time that her gallery representation has grown .
Nicholas RobinsonBut just to rewind a little bit to talk about her career , her first exhibition was in 1958 . And she's been showing consistently in that time . But one of the interesting things that I noticed looking at her exhibition biography In 1963 , for instance , she had an exhibition called the Text Styles of Sheila Hicks at the Art Institute of Chicago . Now , of course , this is a preeminent fine art institution in the US . So this is an art show , a fine art show . But in the same year she had an exhibition , some kind of exposition , with knoll associates at the merchandise mart in chicago . Now this would have been a trade fair for what back then was a leading modern furniture and design company . So even even then you know she's showing as an artist but her expertise in textiles incidentally , the knoll the Knoll company was founded by a man but really transformed and developed into a design powerhouse by Florence Knoll , so also a very powerfulling both the art world and the design craft world , if you will , simultaneously throughout her early working life , especially when these sort of attitudes at that time were a little bit different towards these craft media appearing in fine art . But but some of the other sort of milestones we can speak of in this last period I mentioned 16 , 17 years .
Nicholas RobinsonIn 2010 , she had a retrospective at the Addison Gallery in Andover , massachusetts , and that traveled to the ICA in Philadelphia and this would have had a transformative effect on her , on how widespread her reputation was to become amongst the more sort of mainstream fine art community . The same year she was a medalist of the Smithsonian Archives of American Art . In 2013 , she showed first with Alison Jake's Gallery in London and that is a very fine gallery that has specialized a lot in sort of underappreciated women artists , artists of different ethnicity that are sort of not usually in the sort of pantheon of the modernist canon . In 2014 , she had a work a major work that was included in the Whitney Biennial , and this work was called Pillar of Inquiry . This consisted of a huge column of twisted yarns kind of thrusting out of the ground and rising upwards , causing the viewer to rise upwards to look at their culmination in the ceiling . Another major column work was installed at the Sydney Biennial 2017 , she participated in .
Nicholas RobinsonVenice Biennale 2018 , more than 100 works in a solo exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris her adopted country , of course . 2022 , international Sculpture Centre Lifetime Achievement Award . And 2025 , american Academy of Arts and Letters inductee . And 2025 , also San
Gallery Representation and Exhibition History
Nicholas RobinsonFrancisco MoMA no-transcript .
Nicholas RobinsonTo go back a little to that , alison Jakes , as I mentioned , she has a very big , prominent gallery in New York Sycamore , malloy Jenkins . She has a very fine gallery with two locations in Germany Maya Riga , frank Elbaz in Paris , shows with Necht St Stéphane in Vienna and shows with Massimo Menini in Brescia . Now , all of these galleries have many significant artists in their rosters . What's interesting is that all of them are , you know , could reasonably be considered sort of mid-tier galleries , but each of them has very , you know , close relationships with its artists , very nurturing relationships with its artists . Often , a lot of them have quite a lot of esoteric artists , maybe a bit more experimental artists , and all of them have a very strong grounding in a very particular geographic locale . So , perhaps a little unusually , she has very many galleries all of which presumably represent her in a different territory .
Jeppe CurthOkay , good , Thanks . A bit about her prices primary , secondary , where are we ?
Nicholas RobinsonOkay , Well for her prices . If you want to get a , you know , a medium sized sort of painting type work , that's maybe a meter 20 or thereabouts , I mean you're looking at around a hundred thousand euros for that . If you want a very developed kind of sophisticated tapestry work which has the sort of tubular sculptural elements that I described , probably you know looking at 140 , 150,000 euros , and I've seen them up to 300,000 euros dollars for larger ones , typically her work at auction has sold very consistently and readily in this sort of 60,000 to 120,000 dollar range . But interestingly , her record auction price is a price that was achieved at the Drouot the auction in Paris and that's a very large five meter tapestry form , an early sort of seminal one called Fugue , from 1969 to 1970 . And that made almost 700,000 euros in December 2022 , which by today's reckoning is quite close to a million dollars , in fact , if you look at today's exchange rates . No-transcript .
Jeppe CurthOkay , thank you , nick Fiber . And textile works can sometimes , for some collectors , be challenging . It's also not the first thing you jump into , as I also haven't jumped into when I started building my collection . Do you think that influenced the demand and price ? A little bit said , but it only last 20 years is had been liquid in the secondary market . What does this tell us ? Is this just a change of the way we look at things and her market ?
Nicholas RobinsonI think so . I mean , I think you can point to an attitudinal shift . I mean you see a lot of contemporary art now made of ceramics . Also , you know many , many other artists make work that is predominantly from textiles . You see the work of I don't know even L Anatsui from from , from Africa , making work from bottle caps , sort of stitched together in this very sort of meticulous , crafted way . So I just think , I think the you know , the materiality of fine art has the language , the repertoire has widened extensively and of course , if artists continue to do this and to broaden the scope of their materiality , then inevitably people will over time respond to that and of course it's the gallery's responsibility to continue to support this expansion of ideas .
Nicholas RobinsonBut in terms of people finding it to be a palatable thing to live with , I mean these works are exquisite . I mean there's quite a lot of works these days that maybe you could consider to embody a hybridity of form that are not quite design , they're not quite painting , they're not quite sculpture , they're sort of architectonic in some way . They have a particular sort of influence or relationship to this sort of lived environment that they're installed in . I mean , I mean her works very much sort of activate space in a really nice
Market Value and Collector Guidance
Nicholas Robinsonway they . But they do function for the most part like a painting on a wall in the fact that they're , they're sort of , it's not impractical really to to try and accommodate them . I mean , they're exquisitely made .
Nicholas RobinsonAnd her , her approach to color , I mean it's it's , it's very , very sophisticated , it's very beautiful , it's very nuanced and subtle . And the way that color combines with the materiality of the , the yarns , oftentimes they sort of they shimmer like silk or they have this , this incredible material property , this is very seductive when I look at her auction data for the last 15 , 20 years the long she has been selling at auction it had been been growing year to year around 8% to 9% .
Nicholas RobinsonOkay .
Jeppe CurthBut it's also come from very low estimate in the beginning to reasonable today , so the volatility is quite high . Is that because it's textile or is it because it's undervalued artist ?
Nicholas RobinsonI don't really know the answer . I mean a lot of the stuff that we think about . Of course it's a certain kind of , you know , response to the changing field of ideas . It's a certain sort of experience of looking and learning , a certain kind of practiced eye and connoisseurship , which of course creates its own sense of instinct about things . And then of course it is the fact that you know the market is more obviously embracing these things . But of course , if you start from a low base and your prices go up year to year , then you can of course point to significant financial appreciation .
Nicholas RobinsonBut I think that I do think that she's underappreciated . I think that there are these sort of titans of modernism that have never really been sort of acknowledged or recognized as such , and I think that absolutely she has to be considered that when you look at the extent of her CV , you look at how compelling her , you know , her sort of museum collection . I mean , she's in , she's in every significant museum around the world from , you know , the Art Institute of Chicago that I mentioned , the Centre Pompidou . She's in every significant provincial city museum in the US Cleveland Museum of Art , in Boston , in Charlotte , in the Wadsworth Athenium , in Philadelphia , national Gallery of Art in Washington , but she's also , she's also in in , in , in in MoMA , she's also in the Tate , she's also in the Stedelijk , she's also in the National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto .
Nicholas RobinsonI mean , this is a very , this is an artist whose reach has permeated far and wide . So so , of course , when you , when you , when you see , when you see the , the , the sort of volatility of the contemporary art market , and you see young artists who , who , whose price becomes meteoric so quickly in that you see the influence of , of , of , you know Instagram , you see the influence of of kind of social media hype related to these artists . You see highly speculative prices at auction and you see artists whose work maybe costs 40 , $50,000 selling at auction for $300,000 . And , honestly , it feels absurd , it feels grotesque . And then , if you look to an artist like Sheila Hicks , who has earned her stripes with a dedicated , you know , incredible integrity of , of practice and commitment to that over such a long time , and you can buy something incredible by her for probably less than $100,000 , then you have to question the sort of prevailing system and you have to try and find some kind of common sense to cut through some of the nonsense that takes place these days .
Jeppe CurthSo for a collector entering the market and looking for Sheila Hicks , what should they be looking for ? What ?
Nicholas Robinsonkind of work should they be looking for ?
Jeppe CurthYeah , and what kind of work , monumental installation , is it provenance ?
Nicholas RobinsonIt's not possible for most people to accommodate some of these monumental works . Of course they are best suited to institutional installations or museum permanent collections . You see some very grandiose works in that context in MoMA in the Whitney . There was a significant installation at the Haywood Gallery , the Sydney that I mentioned .
Jeppe CurthBut do you see the works as primarily institutional or is this also a strong private collection base ?
Nicholas RobinsonWell , of course there's strong private collection base , because her work operates on many different scales and and and varies in form depending on the type typology that she's involved in making . There's the minims , the small paintings . There's the , the slightly larger painting format works , and by painting I refer to the stretcher bars around which the yarns are stretched . They have an object quality , but they , from a distance , they they function somewhat like a painting . And then there are the , the wall hangings , the tapestries , that have a much more sort of base , relief , sculptural quality , even though they also do hang . I'm sure it's possible to get a , a big column work if you have an enormous home and you wish to have some spectacular insulation in your atrium . But but , but most commonly , of course , these more modest formats are very easy for somebody to accommodate in their home as a collector , as a lover of fine art . And where can they find these ? They can find them in in this , this wide array of galleries that I mentioned .
Nicholas RobinsonI mean one of the one of the things that brought her work to you know my consciousness . I mean we spend a lot of time traveling to various art fairs around the world . You know , I just sort of started noticing that wherever I would go , I would see a very beautiful sort of textile work and you know , I would sort of , you know , look at the label or ask questions , and I just seen these recurring increasingly much across the world and everywhere I go , you know , oh , there's another
Long-term Outlook and Legacy
Nicholas RobinsonSheila Hicks . And of course , when something becomes , you know , sort of visually prevalent in that way , there's a reason for it it's because it's becoming adopted , it's becoming popular , it's becoming , you know , it's turning into a thing that's developing its own particular momentum , and it doesn't occur in these contexts unless it is also developing momentum in a market context .
Jeppe CurthCorrect . So how do you think collectors should think about textile art with a broader collection strategy ?
Nicholas RobinsonBut I don't think that they should think about textile art per se . I think they should think about the art of the individual who's making it , and I think that it's not relevant to think of what it's made of . It's relevant to think of as something that's good or interesting or original or unique or special or all of these sorts of , you know , shamanistic , magical properties that the best art has . And Sheila Hicks' work is absolutely of that ilk , just like somebody else who's great at making paintings , or just like Picasso , who turned his wizardry to pottery as well as all of the other things that he was working in . So it's not a case of assessing it as a textile work of art . It's a case of assessing it as a work of art on its own merits , irrespective of the fact that it is made from textile .
Jeppe CurthThat's a great point . So is Sheila Hicks undervalued today , and what's the long-term outlook for her market , do you think ?
Nicholas RobinsonI think that she's undervalued , just because I've seen how expensive things are generally Great things from today that become , as I've mentioned , absurdly expensive . Great things from the late 19th century , the 19-teens , the 20s , 40s , 60s , 80s , whatever it might be . There are always great things that somehow , through whatever accident of history or prevailing attitudes , have become a little bit neglected , and I think that you know . You look to the longevity of her contribution and the significance of her contribution and I think you know , you see that you know to be crude about it . You see the price tag attached to these objects in the galleries or in the art fairs . They are reasonably priced . Now , that's not to say they're not significant sums of money , but relative to other things that inhabit the same marketplace , they are reasonably priced .
Jeppe CurthSo I guess I think that was it for today . Do you have anything we are missing out of ?
Nicholas RobinsonI don't think so . Anything to add . No , I think that we've covered everything . I mean , I think it's clear that she's a really significant artist who's and you know her work has been in many also corporate collections . It's been used in atria of office buildings , in conference facilities , in in big kind of corporate .
Nicholas RobinsonI mean , you know , it's not like she's just suddenly come from nowhere and and and you can see from her CV that she's been very busy for a long period of time , also with a wide , you know , exposure and appreciation . But I think that I think that you know , you know historic women , artists , this more sort of marginalized medium , all of these other things are boundaries that used to exist and be a little bit of a sort of a glass ceiling for an artist . But that glass ceiling has been , you know , broken through nowadays and you know , artist , but that glass ceiling has been , you know , broken through nowadays and and you know it's interesting to look at the artists that I guess there have been the agents of that change and I think clearly she is one such artist and that's why , you know , as a pioneer , as a also as a sort of , you know , elder States person , you know she is , is is really is really exciting and really nice to see the the way that her work is being lauded these days .
Jeppe CurthThank you , nick . Thank you once again for let me pick your brain , yeah thanks yeah , that was it for this episode of the collector's edge . If you are looking for expert insights , want to make informed decision and would like advice from independent advisors , send us an email or maybe just call us . You can find all the info on our website nordicartpartnerscom . Thank you for listening and we hope to have you back for another episode . Bye .
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