Hiquily was born in 1925 in Paris. During World War Two, he moved with his father to live in the Indochina Peninsula for two years. His contact with Asian culture there would shape his creations throughout his life. After his return to Europe, he entered the École Supérieure des Beaux-Art de Paris, where he studied sculpture and expanded his network of friends in the artist community. In 1953, he won a prize in sculpture, and his unimaginably radical works in subsequent exhibitions won him fame across the Atlantic Ocean in the United States. In 1959, the Guggenheim Museum took his works into its collection, and he met several contemporary pop artists during his visit to the US, including Rauschenberg, Lichtenstein and Jasper Johns. He was also tasked with making three sets of the 12-meter-high powered landscape art Girouette Monumentale , an iconic combination of Chinese culture and modern art concepts to celebrate the Universal Exposition of 2010 in Shanghai.